This year we found some time to go on our days off.
Ben got to my house around 10:45 and I tried to get him to go get ready to go. We finally got out of here just after noon. My mom's schedule at work fell apart so she wanted to go with us. We picked her up and drove to Puyallup to meet up with Ben's mom for lunch.
We got there around 1:30 due to traffic. Trish insisted we go to Mongolian Grill off of River Road. We enjoyed our food and talked about an array of stuff. We finished, paid and she had to go back to work and then pick up Amy around 3. We drove up the hill so Ben could deposit some money. We drove back down the hill and tried to find a parking spot near the fairgrounds. We ended up paying $10 to park at the nearby church. We figured it was a safe place to leave the Escape.
We made our way to the Red Gate and I treated everyone to their entrance fee into the fair. We grabbed a program and found some restrooms before we started walking around. I got onto my phone and looked up the lab caches and circled them on the map. Now we knew where they were when we walked near them. We started with Extreme Scream. We had to find out how tall it was.
We stopped by the Army tent because mom wanted a bag. We talked to one of the girls for a bit and told her that Erika was in the Army and stationed in Germany. They also gave us stickers and some pens. Meanwhile Ben was wandering around the Celtic tent across the way. He bought a shamrock stamp.
We continued our rounds through the fair. We stopped at the Fair View Club, which was by the State Patrol and they had a vehicle on display of what it looks like to get in an accident and total your car when you are texting and driving...or distracted and driving. We had to get a number off the building for our second lab cache.
We went inside the Pavillion and looked at some art work. It included art drawn by kids, photos taken by kids and various collections by children and adults. It made me want to submit a collection of mine into the fair next year. I will have to look into it.
We went back outside and saw they had camel rides and the back of their shirts said "What Day is it?" Of course we had to be at the fair on a Wednesday, lol.
We continued walking around the concourse. We went into the Milking Parlour to get our third lab cache code off of the horse diagram and to get some free chocolate milk. Yum!
We checked our map to see where all the animals were. I was mostly here to see animals. We walked over to the small farm animals...goats, llamas, ducks, geese and sheep. Ben kept trying to pet them. I told him that we can't pet these ones and that they may kick us out of the fair if they catch us. Then when we got to the actual area where we could pet animals he didn't want to. Mom noticed the word on the floor for the code we were looking for.
From the small animals we moved to the pigs at the Pig Palace. There were two giant pigs inside seperated into two pens. One had just had babies and the other one was due at the end of September. It was fun watching all the little piggys run around. We found the plaque and found the word we were looking for. We walked into Sillyville to find out what color the bell was on the sign. Our 4H Lab Caches Adventure was over. It was fun wandering around the fair looking at various animals, rides and signs. I hope there will be more lab cache adventures in the future.
From there, we walked over to the Showplex Center and spent a good hour or so wandering around the various booths and exhibitions. Ben sat in a massage chair that basically massaged everything once you sat it in. I know that sounds dirty but get your mind out of the gutter. Haha!
I got a massive headache while walking around. I needed some IB Profin and mom didn't have any and I didn't bring my bag with me. I decided to tough it out. Mom got talked into letting someone straighten her hair, Ben used the restroom and I sat down at a table and waited for them.
It started getting darker and people started to thin out. Ben wanted our caricatures drawn so we found the guy at the booth. We talked about what we wanted and we decided on Ben dressed up as a fireman saving me from a burning building. I sat down first and then Ben. We paid, got a frame to put it in and enjoyed it.
We wanted to go on a few rides and play a few games with the remaining time we had left. We got a bunch of tickets and rode the rollercoaster, the spaceship, one of the octopus rides, two the the rides Ben wanted to go on were closed due to maintenance. We raced down the slide twice and I won both times...the last time Ben cheated by trying to pull my burlap out from underneath me. It was fun.
We convinced my mom to ride the ferris wheel with us. We made fun of a lot of people wandering around, especially the dumb high school kids.
It was almost 9 and we got hungry so we walked over to Pete's BBQ for some chicken, fries and a pulled pork sandwich. I inhaled my food. I didn't realize how much we walked without eating dinner...or how easy it was to lose track of time. We tried to play a few games but Ben couldn't find the one he wanted to play and the whack a mole wasn't working. We went and got a bunch of scones and made our way to the gate because it was late and the fair was shutting down.
It's been almost 20 years since the last time I went to the fair and I definitely had a great time. I hope I get to go again next year.
Next Adventure: Longview, Pure Insanity and Freda's Potluck Event
