los angeles county fair

the county fair came to town for the entire month of september. it settled in a sun-soaked valley in pomona, about half an hour away from us, and we ended up going twice (one of those rare occasions when a "we'll come back if it's good" venue ended up being good enough). it was very large and always very crowded, but somehow nevertheless lines were short and seats for attractions always available. in general, very charming and well-executed.

eating at the fair is always a shaky experience consciencewise. at the fair they fried everything - zucchinis ("zucchini weenies"), white castle burgers (more batter than burger), and even pickles (surprisingly, our favorite). i could feel a guilty pit lodge itself into my stomach as we watched our order of funnel cake materialize: heavy strings of dough squeezed from a bottle straight to deep fry in a vat of boiling hot oil, solidifying into a glistening and misshapen glob, still oozing oil onto the thin paper plates as it was buried in powdery, sugary snow. i made some weak promises to myself not to eat too much of it, but of course they were immediately abandoned once the sinful thing was in my mouth, crispy and crunchy and delicious. it was gone before we thought to take a picture, but here are the fried pickles and the white castle burger:

fried pickles with dipping sauce

heavily battered and fried white castle burger

aside from the rides and the greasy fair fare, they also had live horse racing, albeit with some rather sorry handicappers. fairplex is no churchill, but the thoroughbreds were still beautiful, and the pounding of rushing hooves and the roar of the crowd were still exhilarating. we had a great position right up on the rail next to the finish line, and watched three or four races that way while munching a snocone.

our greatest disappointment there was probably the pig racing, which we arrived early for, but which we also left early because it was so boring. the piglets wore colored bandanas and raced around a tiny track, to the forced cheers of the crowd ("you guys are team red, you guys are team blue"). it had all the signs of a kid-oriented event, but the most disturbing part was when they handed out coupons for a free pound of bacon at ralph's.

other attractions included a large red barn with many, many farm animals, several indoor exhibits promoting environmental awareness, many vendors of all kinds (clothing, kitchenware, hot tubs, luxury cars), and the budweiser clydesdales.

high in the air over the fair