North Carolina

Drove there with the girls and Mark (Madie's boyfriend at the time) Lisa's favorite thing is right near the beginning...the "grist mill" where they make the best hushpuppies.  You are handed one hushpuppy to sample as you walk through and you can even buy a bag of the mix to take home and make, which we did.  They had nice facilities for the horse competitions and we sat and watched some of the judging.  They also had lots of horse-related things for sale around the outer ring of the arena.  I think we even put our names in a raffle for a horse that was being given away.  There were also some adorable miniature horses.  Leslie got to hold baby chicks and the girls, and I rode a few rides on the midway.  Lisa enjoyed the decorated cakes on display. 

Kind of a chilly fall day, but it warmed up nicely.  Very crowded, even first thing in the morning.  Bought a whole cup of hushpuppies this time.  Still the best horse show access of any fair we have attended.  Food was not up to expectations, we had a really bad turkey-leg experience.  This fair doesn't have much in the way of live entertainment outside of the paid concerts.   

We made a last-minute decision to go to the ‘NC Mountain State Fair’. This fair is run by the state agricultural department, but unlike the actual NC state fair, this one showcases the western part of NC. In addition to the usual state fair stuff, there is a lot of mountain music. Held just outside of the Asheville airport at the WNC Ag Center, it runs for 9 days and is a surprisingly big event. We left Friday afternoon and overnighted at the Skylaranna Resort & SPA in Hendersonville. Saturday morning we got up and I did my Saturday run on the Oklawaha greenway, then we went to the fair. Getting there 30 minutes after the gates opened, we breezed right through and quickly found some animal barns where we saw (very) newborn cows, piglets, and some chicken eggs that were in the early stages of being chipped open from the inside. We were disappointed that we were not able to see our favorite animals, rabbits and horses; though the schedule said some kind of rabbit show was happening that morning… we didn’t find it. There were actually a few horses, but you couldn’t really see them as there was extra “chicken wire” on the stalls, probably to keep little fingers out.

The layout of this fair is a little different than most. First, being situated right next to the airport, there is a frequent roar from departing jets, which didn’t seem to bother the animals at all. The strange part though is that the midway is central to everything. All the exhibit buildings, animal barns, and other cultural displays encircled the midway. For old folks like us that don’t ride the amusements, is was a much longer walk around the perimeter to see everything. While it looked like certain rainstorms were coming, the weather held off nicely.

Something unusual here was that several of the animal barns were not used in a way that we are used to. It seemed that a farm family would occupy several stalls (where you would expect to see a horse or cow stabled) and create a little themed exhibit about their family or their hobby. Examples of this were a 70’s Christmas living room or a Bible-versed goose display.

We ate a brisket sandwich and “Bear Balls” (cornbread, pulled-pork, mac & cheese, battered, fried and covered with cheese sauce and bacon) from a local food truck. Lisa bought a jelly-filled cupcake from a booth that was selling homemade jams and jellies. For bragging-rights, I sampled some Dill-Pickle Fudge (surprisingly not awful), and we ended up buying 3 squares of more customary flavored fudge. The fudge and the cupcake were from the ‘Made in NC’ building, which are the type of thing we always look forward to. Finally, we had our first Ribbon Fries of the season, which were great, but too large for us to finish.