State Fair of Texas

For the past two years, I've sworn I'm going to go to the State Fair of Texas. For two years, I never got around to it. This year, however, I HAD to go... Why? Because of the food and my gigantic appetite. :) So, a week and a half ago, armed with Zantac, Tums and some good walking shoes, Hector and I set out to the Fair.

We took Dr. Pepper cans to get in for 3 dollars each.. (a savings of 24 DOLLARS!) Spoiler Alert: This post is mostly about food at the fair. :)

First rattle out of the bag, what should welcome us through the gates but......
Chicken Fried Bacon!!!!!

Yes sir... I didn't think you could make my favorite pork product any tastier, but they did. And with a little Tobasco sauce? Mmm. Tums #1.

Then we kept on walking. We passed the petting zoo, and the Wine Garden. I couldn't sample wines and Hector didn't feel like it, so we bypassed this otherwise desirable portion of the fair. We passed tons of fried desserts and the famous fried frozen margaritas (how'd they do that??) but we knew what was next on our list... Fletcher's Corn Dogs. So, we kept going, eyes on the prize. We rounded a corner and lo and behold..... FLETCHER'S!

WORTH all 30 tickets it cost us for two corn dogs and a large lemonade! Tums #2.

Then we looked at all the cars they had on display.. And dreamed of having a new car someday. :)

Now that we'd had our corn dogs, we were not particular about what we had next. But Hector had heard that they had fried guacamole bites somewhere, so we stopped to ask an information lady, and she said, "Oh yea, just go left here, right here, straight for 50ft, pass this, around that corner and THERE they are." How do they do THAT? Of all the foods and sights to see, she knew exactly how to get to the guac bites! And she was spot on. With some difficulty remembering, we followed her instructions and VOILA!, there they were.

Hector liked them. Not his Fair favorite, but he liked them.

Oh, Hey Big Tex~ Couldn't go to the Fair without saying hi to this big guy!

And I also couldn't let Hector 'one up' me on the fried delights... so I saw the fried cheesecake stand! Tums #3 and #4. These were perhaps the very best part of the evening.

No, I didn't trust the strangers around me enough to let them take a picture of us. So, extended arm picture it is. :) That was the line for the Ferris Wheel behind us, MILES long. I so wanted to ride but didn't think I could stand in a line for so long.

I was pretty full, but we made out way to the indoor Food Court, just to be sure we didn't miss anything. And I guess we would have, because:

Hector found gorditas...

And I found funnel cakes! Tums #5. He said the gordita was awesome, and we both thought the funnel cake was award-winning. :)

So, we were very tired by this time... And my feet hurt. We started to make our way back towards the side we'd parked on. And we realized we had 12 tickets left. Well, that's like 6 dollars, and we didn't wanna WASTE it, so Hector remembered seeing a fresh-squeezed lemonade stand near where we walked in. A mile later, we found the stand (not near our entrance, I might add) and we got the greatest tasting fresh lemonade we've ever drank. (Fair delirium?? maybe..)

Ahh.. Another year, another Texas State Fair gone by. I'm very glad we made it out there. What did I take away from this experience (besides a very full belly and achy feet)? #1 Sadly, some of the greatest foods out there happen to be fried. #2 We should probably go get put on cholesterol-lowering medicines, immediately. #3 I don't think I can ever take my kids to that dirty place, especially when they're in strollers. #4 The midway and its creepy carnies scares me a little bit. and #5 We should buy less tickets next time, to keep from feeling obligated to buy more food. :)

All in all, a great night. :)