Maine

Due to some family matters among our extended NY family, our fair itinerary was cut short for 2024. However we were able to visit the Maine State Fair. Maine is one of those states that has no official, state-sanctioned fair, but several local fairs that use 'State Fair' in their name. When that happens, we research and choose the biggest among them so that we can 'check the box' for that state. The Skowhegan State Fair claims to be "the nation’s oldest consecutively running agricultural fair", so we took a couple days out of our NY visit to attend this one. The plan was to go on Sunday, August 11th, but Hurricane Debby made us move up our plans. We arrived on opening day as the gates opened, and parked in the front row. The bonus was that being opening day, the gate entry was only $1 each, and parking was $5, so we got in for $7, which is a record for us. The skies were crystal clear, but we continually monitored our home security cameras as the hurricane was dumping inches of rain back in NC.

We arrived so early that some areas had not really opened up yet. So, we sat down in their open-air coliseum to watch the Youth horse show. Lisa was very happy to be able to see quite a few horses at this fair, as there have been some states that disappointed in that area. We watched a little while, walked around, and then came back for more, as it was a good, shady place to sit and rest a spell.

As small as this fair was, it was complete in that it had all the animals we typically look for except sheep/goats, but there were barns for them. I suspect this may have been an opening-day thing. David enjoyed his bunnies, and we both enjoyed watching the poultry being judged as we walked through; something we don’t usually get to see as it’s happening. There was also a nice antique tractor and vintage engine display. We did not stay long enough for a show, but they did have at least two; a magic act and a pig SHOW (which would have been interesting as we have only seen pig RACES at other fairs).

We skipped the wholesome foods on this visit, and went straight for the decadent fair stuff. We got a fresh-made Doughboy (funnel cake). We’ve never seen them offer to cut it into wedges like a pizza, so we did that. On each wedge we put a different topping (Raspberry, Bavarian Cream, Cinnamon Sugar and Powdered Sugar). We got a Whoopie Pie, which is supposed to be a Maine staple. Lisa got a fresh-made hot pretzel which was quite good. And, on the way out we grabbed a bag of cotton candy to take back and share with Marsha.

Even though we don’t go for the rides, we were impressed with some of the kiddie rides they had; some of which we had never seen before. And, seeing the “Gravitron” there brought back unpleasant memories for us, as we rode it one too many times years ago at a local fair and it ruined those kind of circular rides for us forever!

The fairgrounds were a combination of older buildings and fairly new modern metal buildings. All of the buildings were small and modest compared to other fairs we’ve been to, but overall it was quite clean and well-maintained.