Small Bench

Went to the State Fair!  Drove to the Big City in the afternoon leaving Brother's Brent and Phil to their own devices.  I stayed at the same hotel as Friend Kathy and her husband Stan.  Kathy and I met up the next morning at 6:30 in the lobby and then drove to a Park & Ride that featured express bus rides to the Fair grounds.  We arrived there around 8 a.m.  Did our usual things - coffee and cream puffs to get us going.  Walked through some animal barns where Kathy got licked by a cow.  Met up w/ Friend Nancy who had driven over that morning.  I purchased some rocks at the Hippodrome and we walked on up through the Fair.  Attendance didn't break first day records but came quite close at 137,000.  Even w/ that many people I managed to recognize Cousin Rick's profile and we stopped to say hi to Rick, Dawn, Paul, and Gillie.  Brent had planned to go w/ them but had caught my cold and stayed back at my house to rest.  I stopped off at Northwoods Furniture and ordered another small bench (ordering at State Fair gets me a 15% discount).  We walked on to check out the Siberian Husky aficionados demonstration.  There were some other places on the way that looked interesting but lines of people waiting to get in were incredibly long!  I picked up a falafel pita sandwich and pomegranate lemonade at the food building (funny no long lines for wonderful middle-eastern food) and met up w/ Kathy and Nancy who had gone to the Dairy building for malts and to see Princess Kay of the Milky Way sit in a freezing room while her likeness was carved into a block of butter.  We met up on the lawn of the Horticulture Building to eat before continuing on through the grounds.  More long lines even at a pronto-pup stand but Nancy & Kathy wanted one so they stood in line.  I sat down at a nearby bench at the same time as another gentleman.  While waiting we struck up a conversation and talked maybe 20 minutes until Kathy & Nancy were ready to head out again.  By 2 p.m., Kathy and I had said good bye to Nancy and gotten on the bus back to our hotel.   I've been to the Fair enough to know that afterwards the first thing is to take a shower and put on fresh clothes.  At 4 p.m. we met up again to continue our newer tradition of going to a movie matinee after the Fair - this year it was Weapons described as a dark comedy horror flick.  Then, of course, we went out to eat.  Something about going to the Fair always makes me hungry afterwards.