Louisiana

The Louisiana State Fair is the latest fair on the calendar. We had to juggle around Election Day duties and tropical storm Rafael to make this one work. As the trip started and the weather changed, we ended up moving our Fair day from Friday to Sunday. This allowed us to press on for a second visit to Waco, TX to see the various Fixer-Upper/Magnolia sites. We also were able to see the Duck Commander HQ in West Monroe, LA and the Hometown stuff in Laurel, MS. Perhaps this was more of an HGTV trip than a state fair trip.

After a lot of weather anxiety, Sunday turned out to be the best day to go. We got there shortly after opening, and entered right in the middle on an empty midway. The carnival portion of the fair occupied a much larger percentage of the overall fair than we are used to.

The regional/cultural exhibits were very lacking here. All of the agriculture, 4H, bakery, and food awards were in a single building. While they were nice, it is apparent this is not the emphasis of this fair. However, this one building did a very good job of also setting up educational sections that were great for kids. This included counting tree rings, a cotton crop to product display, and identifying animal furs. There was also just a single vendor building with the usual state fair services and merchandise available.

Right off the midway was the Louisiana State Fair Zoo, which included the usual exhibit animals, plus some very large turtles which we have not seen elsewhere. We were glad to see these animals, as there were none to see anywhere else on the fairgrounds. The one livestock building was “closed for cleaning”, but appeared to be empty anyway. I think we just were too late for any of the judging at this fair. Lisa got to see a few of her horses in the zoo area, and during the Animal Show they exhibited a well-trained Friesian horse, but no bunnies for Dave this time. The animal show also included 4 camels, a miniature pony, and a pot-belly pig.

Since there was little in the way of local state culture here, we took the opportunity to take in some of the shows that we normally don’t have time for. We watched the Magic Show, a Dog Show, a Daredevil Show, and an Animal Show.