New Mexico

Coming from the Kansas fair was a long drive by way of the Oklahoma panhandle. We stayed in Guymon OK, which was a tiny town on the prairie. For more scenery we decided to take the non-interstate route the next morning which led us through 2.5 hours more of flate prairie land in some overcast and drizzly weather. Eventually, but pretty sudden when it happened, we were in the mountains as we crossed into New Mexico. It is funny that the road barely grazed the NW corner of Texas (the marker was about 50 feet off the road). In NM, Lisa could not resist taking more pictures as we rounded each mountain. The hotel we booked turned out to be an old-timey motor lodge on Route 66 (thanks Expedia!). While it was clean and comfortable, it was in a concerning neighborhood. We ate dinner at the Owl Cafe, which also was an original Route 66 establishment. The building was shaped like an owl's head.

The New Mexico state fair did not disappoint. As we pulled in the gate, we saw trainers leading jockeys on race horses, so that set the tone for Lisa. Parking on the race track infield and walking under the race track itself to the entry gate, it felt like a grand entrance. It was quickly apparent that this was an upscale fair. The entire place was clean and the exhibit buildings were all new and built in the mexican adobe style. There were several cultural buildings for native american art and hispanic art. The Natural Resources building had a well-stocked fish pond. Several of the buildings prohibited photography to protect the artists' work. After being accosted for that at previous fairs, we know to look out for it now.

Due to the timing of our visit (two days before the end of the fair), most of the livestock were gone. The livestock we did see (swine, cattle and sheep) were exhibit animals. Some rabbits and poultry remained and were fun to look at.

The 4H and FFA looked like they were going to be smaller than usual, as the first buildings we went into did not have a lot, but then we got into the larger buildings and were very impressed! The FFA also had something they call the Red Barn which contained many different animal babies, and FFA memebers holding them for you to see up close and even pet. All these buildings are air-conditioned which is something we don't usually see, even in the southern states. This year's fair theme was movies made in NM, so there was a lot of exhibit space for Breaking Bad, The Avengers, and other locally-filmed flicks. There was a very complete working model train exhibit and lots of folks there promoting the hobby. The Home Arts building had an exhibit by a woodturning club that featured two craftsman running lathes. One spent a lot of time with David, taking him through the entire process of turning a handcrafted wooden pen (I see a lathe purchace in our future!). Speaking to David's interests, there was also a small tent for the Albuquerque Classic Computers club. It had all kinds of really old PC gear. It turns out that their leader is also a former Microsoft employee. We had a good chat with them.

We also enjoyed chatting with the New Mexico Habitat for Humanity folks. Their home builds are very different from what we are used to, being adobe-style and solar-powered. This fair had a lot of good shows/entertainment as well! Pig races are something we see at a lot of fairs, but this one also had duck races, which the audience could participate in, and stingrays that you could see up close, pet and even pay to feed, which Lisa really enjoyed doing, as they are one of her favorite sea animals! There was also a shark show, a sea lion show, western comedy act called Tumbleweed Crossing, and more!

Food: David enjoyed a roasted corn and we each ate a piece of pie from Asbury Cafe; a place we were told you HAD to go to at the fair. The funny thing was that we were trying to find it, sat down to rest and then got up to start looking and discovered it was right there in fron of us; in fact we had been sitting at one of their tables! LOL The pies did NOT disappoint...David had blueberry apricot (though he had asked for BLACKBERRY) and Lisa had apricot. This is probably the least amount of food we have eaten at any fair, but as with the Kansas fair the prices were VERY high! The only other things we bought were a bottle of water and coke...water being $4!

As we were leaving the fair, and Lisa was mentioning her disappointment that we didn't find any other horses to see, we noticed race horses and jockeys (staging for race #6). David to the rescue, as usual...he asked the security guard at the emergency exit if we could go in and they allowed us to, as long as when we were done we headed directly out to the parking lot. We watched the trainers escort horse & jockey to the gates and were literally on the finish line (spectator side of the fence) as horse 5 won the race. Exciting.