Monday, October 10, 2011

Yee-HAW The Texas State Fair!


The "Texas Star"
The Texas State Fair. Boasting the largest in the country, the Texas State Fair has been in operation for 120 years now.

I wonder how many years ago they began gouging Texans?
Now someone will be offended by the above statement, if so, you probably fit into 1 of 2 categories: the super well-to-do, or the super poor. How could such a social strata be grouped you ask: neither have any concern for money.
Allow me to share my mediocre adventure with you…
First: I blame no one but myself for my experience, I’m sure that a little research on my part could have helped me avoid such a financial mistake. I accept full responsibility for my actions: no one enticed me to go, no ads, no articles, no persuasions at all; only my self-initiated interest. I’m not suggesting that the idea just spontaneously came to me. The fair occurred to me thanks to an episode of “King of the Hill”. Hank and his ilk attend the fair where (the late) Luanne ends up in the head of the “Big Tex” statue and proceeds to have a tantrum about something or other; I really can’t recall what the episode was about.
So Big Tex, the famous 50 foot statue flaunting his Dickies work wear, lured me to the world’s largest paid advertisement. Let me note at this point that if you are a single traveler, aiming to look at women, eat some fried food and drink copious beer the State Fair is for you. For the sojourner seeking a good time the Fair has plenty of potential –definitely a bucket list destination. For the family man, not so much…
Within moments of entering the metropolis of Dallas, my smarty phone quickly swept me off I45 and into a disenfranchised ghetto. After verifying the doors to my geriatric Mountaineer were locked, I proceeded to get lost despite my GPS’s assurance I was heading in the right direction. The streets of Dallas appear to have been plotted by a group of toddlers. After multiple U-turns and with a renewed confidence in the GPS I arrived at the State Fair. A few miles of seeking a parking spot had me fed up enough to pay 10 dollars for a seedy gravel lot behind a McDonalds and close to the main gate.
I have to praise the Dallas Police; their presence was felt and highly appreciated. The OT budget of Dallas must be pretty high, every 15 degrees of view you could see a cop –or group of cops. I felt safe with my 2 boys as we confidently strode to the gate.
I approached 2 women of advanced age staffing the ticket booth; they were friendly enough as they informed me my entrance would cost 44 dollars. I felt that genuine Texas hospitality as I parted with my credit card. Begin the fleece. After watching my children get wanded for weapons we made entry through the turnstile.
Sweet! Here we are: the sights, the smells, the sounds, the Fair! Awesome I thought; what a good dad I am for bringing my kids to the fair… The first thing the boys wanted to do was eat. We went to the ticket booth and with a wide grin I dropped 50 dollars without a second thought. 50 bucks bought me 100 tickets –what I believed to be a princely sum- WRONG. I axed the woman selling the tickets if the food vendors accepted credit cards, “they all operate on tickets, everything is paid for with tickets” she said. “Ok thanks” what a novel idea, this will make it easy to keep spending under control –WRONG.
Without further ado we took the obligatory picture in front of “Big Tex” the 50 foot dickies ad that resembles a very oddly shaped senior citizen with COPD, and then made our way to the food.

Just thrilled to death!

View from the base of
"Texas Star"
 You can’t beat the smells of the fair, there exists no better way to cook food than to submerge it in hot oil. You can keep the few extra years of old age you get by avoiding saturated fat –I’ll take my fried beer and side order of CAD. With cart blanch I ordered the boys a chicken tender basket, fries, and a handsome looking corn on the cob for myself. My smile disappeared as they informed me the total was 24 tickets (a price of 12.00). What I didn’t see was the price board which was cleverly facing the opposite direction of the passersby. Wow, this might require reevaluation.
Surely I can make up for this on the rides. After we choked down the food (which was pretty good, the corn especially, not 5 dollars good, but good) we ambulated toward the midway. The glee was palpable and we were all looking forward to having our guts twisted. Sweet, the first rides (INSERT RECORD SCRATCH SOUND HERE) WTF! 10 tickets a ride. My gross financial underestimation had sunk in, I did my best to hide my anxiety from the kids however it didn’t take them long to realize dad was not in a good way. “Dad lets go on this”, “Um, no, that doesn’t look very fun”, “let’s go on this”, “Oh, that’s cool but look at the line” “Dad WTF?”

We decided on the Dragon boat that swings back and forth and for 15 dollars I watched BOTH the boys’ faces turn from smiling fun to life threatened terror. Seemed near weightlessness didn’t sit well with them and I felt a bit guilty as I reassured the littlest that everything would be fine. I resorted to firmly pressing the boy into his seat with my forearm, which pacified him enough to stop fearing for his life. On to the next ride, which we all agreed should be the “Texas Star”, a rather large Ferris wheel. Cost of “Texas Star”: 12 tickets (6.00 per rider) and the only ride with a long line. Once on board we got to enjoy a heart stopping 2 revolutions –only one of which was at speed, the first time around was for continual loading and offloading of the cars. What a great photo op, except that the cars resemble a correctional facility.


Now 84 dollars (and about 45 minutes) into our expedition I was having serious reservations. I purchased an additional 100 tickets and tried to make the most of it. We found another ride which everyone could agree on and took 2 goes on it; both the boys highly enjoyed this and I basked the warmth of their short lived approval.


Time for some food, the oldest was on a quest for some fried ribs and I was looking to eat some fried Snickers. We strolled around the Midway and endured the heckling of carnies pushing their games with false promises. The boys were attracted by a sign reading “fried Twinkies”… Well hell yes we stopped, and 28 tickets later (yep, that’s 14.00) we had purchased: 1 Twinkie, 1 bottle of root beer and 1 glass of lemonade. The boys split the Twinkie and I firmly cemented my status as a cheap bastard.



40 units of Humulin later we decided (I decided) to check out some of the expos set up in the multiple noir looking buildings with murals straight out of an Ayn Rand novel on the west end of the grounds. Much to my chagrin, this too was an epic fail. I circulated several hundred thousand square feet of pushy sales pitches and more overpriced garbage. I eventually wound up in a gigantic auto dealership where the kids and I enjoyed sitting in vehicles I couldn’t afford –my favorite of which was a Subaru Outback, which the kids informed me only a woman would drive. (I just like it is all)


A one man band. Probably pretty cool to a pre Gen X'er.

Several brands later I happened upon what I consider the highlight of my visit, a Yamaha display. I drooled over a “Super Tenere” (pronounced TEN er Ray) and allowed myself exposure to a sales pitch for which I was awarded the privilege of swinging my leg over the seat. I was thoroughly impressed with the bike and my desire to buy a Triumph Tiger has been severely challenged -back to the story.
It didn’t take long for the kids to make known their boredom. We made our way back to a row of food courts and the search for the infamous fried ribs resumed. Then I found it, my personal holy grail of fried foods, the fried Snickers Bar. What a steal, priced at only 8 tickets (4.00). I was promptly served up about 800 calories of bliss and again enjoyed myself momentarily. I was reeled back to earth by a cranky 10-year-old who had had his fill of the State Fair. We made our way to the main gate desperate to find the oldest boy (and self proclaimed smartest of our group) some fried ribs. As we got closer and closer to the gate the dream of fried ribs faded and reality set in. Instead, the boy opted for another 10 ticket lemonade (which the youngest had to have as well) And with that I had exhausted all but 1 of my tickets (for those of you keeping the math, I used 1 ticket to make up for my 50 cent shortage for a bottle of coke I bought while at the expos)
The boys made known their displeasure with the event and then to add insult to insult, there it was: “Fried Ribs” at the last food vendor of the walkway. You can be assured that I caught an earful.


Something about kids and hotels...

We boarded the SUV and I purchased a room via “Priceline” on my smarty phone. I am happy to report our room at the Hyatt was EXCEPTIONALLY nice and the boys enjoyed it very much. I of course got a room in Frisco which is north of Dallas for the sole purpose of enjoying dinner at “In-N-Out”. We stuffed ourselves with some burgers and fries that were worth going 30 miles out of our way for.


The next morning we had reached a unanimous vote that the Fair would not be a day 2 destination. Instead we opted to tour Dallas starting with a healthy brunch at In-N-Out. We Starbucked up and after a brief detour to an ATM drove to Lake Dallas to visit “Hidden Cove Park”.

Utter disappointment once again. The entrance fee (and I am assuming more were I pulling a boat) was $10.00. Yes, I am a cheap bastard –I blame my wife. We tried to make the most of it and explored a bit. We failed to find 4 Geocaches and my smarty phone died after a short 30 minutes on battery. We had a showdown with a vulture that was guarding a dead squirrel and decided it was time to go.
He had more fun on this swing than at the fair.
From there we drove to Ranger Stadium which was pretty cool. The kids caught a glimpse of Six Flags Over Texas, and the bellyaching commenced. It seemed everyone was fed up with the whole experience so I made the command decision to head home.

Trinity Cemetery. Spooky.
We gassed up and made our way south. I made one last attempt to Geocache; I exited East Belt Line Road off I45 south and drove to the Trinity Cemetery. We again failed to find the microcache but found some cool stuff off the beaten path. Many of the old tombstones were knocked over or broken in half. The spot designated by my smarty phone directed us to a smooth flesh colored tree that had completely enveloped a tombstone growing up and around it. We caught dinner at Chilies where the youngest fell smitten with our waitress. Continuing south, we all made a pact to one day scale the water tower in Ennis and paint a giant “P”. One more fuel stop at the Buc’ees where we marveled at the size and cleanliness of their latrine.
Once back in Spring, I made one last stop at the request of the youngest. We all finalized the mini vacation with 19 dollars worth of frozen yogurt. Once home, fat and happy, I assured the kids our next trip would be better… Six Flags!