Oregon State Fair

We had a really fun day with Gramma Claire. We decided on a whim this morning that it would be a good day to go the Oregon State Fair and let Evelyn see the animals and other fun things. So we packed another picnic lunch (you guessed it, PB &J, do you see a theme here?) and headed south to Salem, the State capital and where the fairgrounds are.

It was a PERFECT day to be at the fair, not hot but bright and sunny. First thing we saw were the cows. Evelyn was captivated. One lady who had livestock on display was really nice and let Evelyn walk into the stall area and pet the cow, whose name was "COOKIE." Evelyn took to the cow like it was a big dog laying down and when she tried to lay on it's haunches the cow decided she better show this little kid just what exactly she was- meaning a 400+lb cow. That' s when I jumped in really fast and pulled her back a bit. And we moved on.
We easily spent the next hour (if not longer no one wore a watch) in the sheep barn. There were two little girls who had their sheep out on a leash and let Evelyn touch, pet, hug and tried to get her to kiss their sheep. Evelyn was game. She loved digging her fingers into their wool. She jumped a bit when the bigger sheep, Snowflake, let out a loud BAAAAA directly in her face but then quickly decided it was very funny.

We walked up and down the aisles and looked at all the different breeds and talked about their different colors.Evelyn was very excited when she saw the "chocolate 'sleep' (this was a tongue twister for her, she couldn't quite say SHeep after saying chocolate) They were, as you may guess, chocolate brown sheep with thick woolly coats. We sat and watched some of the judging and the whole time Evelyn told us she wanted to go to the "Sheep show" meaning she wanted to keep walking the stalls. We easily could have gone home from there and her day would have been complete.

Next we went and saw a Momma Sow and her 10 piglets. They were truly pungent piglets and Evelyn wasted no time in telling us so. She said, "Dey are Stinky pigs, I'm gonna scrub em up. I scrub em and scrub em till dey all clean." I'll mention here that at the end of our day, on the way to the car, we stopped to see the piglets one more time because we could see they were nursing. As Evelyn was leaning over the fence who should come stand next to her and Gramma Claire but Senator Gordon Smith. Evelyn looked at him and said, "dose pigs are stinky!" and he said back to her, "why yes they are" If she ever runs for President one day she can claim she has been politically active since the age of 2.

From there we went and saw the chicken house, the horses, the miniature horses and donkeys and ate lunch while watching various competitions in the horse arena. The Champion of Champions in the Gypsy horse category was allowed to showcase after winning to the song I'm too sexy for the catwalk as we watched his long, long hair flow while he ran. Wacky.
I was a bit apprehensive about the whole fair scene with Evelyn, but was pleasantly surprised. We had a fantastic day and it leaves me with a very wholesome all American feeling. The reason for this is that we went in the morning and stayed in the livestock exhibits for the most part and avoided the whole ride, fair games section. But nonetheless, it was a great fair.