Dog House Ramblings

Another week, another entry...

So it's State Fair time in Texas. Our annual celebration of Big Tex, pig races and fried foods started on Friday and runs for three weeks.

And I would not skip it even for serious money.

Lynne and I headed down just after lunch on the first Sunday. I mean, what's the hurry. They don't start serving beer till noon anyway. And we were not disappointed.

We used the entrance at the back side of the fairgrounds, near the animal pens, since it's never crowded. Plus there's a family with excellent parking on McKenzie just 50 yards from the entrance. Sweat deal.

Our first stop was the coupon booth. $120 later, we headed off in search of corndogs. Fletcher Corny Dogs are the standard by which all others are judged. And this year they did not disappoint. We ate 6 of them between us.

From there, we headed off to the Hans Mueller tent next to the main stage. This is where I get my good German beers - and the site of my first major surprise. Good beer prices had gone up. It now cost 12 coupons (6 bucks) for a bottle of Spaten Optimator or Paulaner Salvator. That's up 3 coupons from last year. I must admit, it slowed my drinking down. Luckily, the Turkey legs had only gone up 2 coupons (to 14). But Lynne is pretty sure she got an extra 3 coupons worth of leg this year. The turkey was cooked to perfection and huge. She couldn't finish it.

With those two things out of the way, we proceeded to the usual hangouts - auto show, Big Tex, dog shows, Food & Fiber Pavilion, Embarcadero/Creative Arts and the Grand Place. We also enjoyed the return of the Killdares to the fair at the Rock Band stage. I even picked up their new CD at one of the souvenir tents

Besides the cost of the beer, probably the biggest disappointment of the fair was the dog shows. The Dancing Dogs show we attended was just plain bad. Since the passing of Skid Boot, it's just not been the same. But at least the arena has been air conditioned.

We also noticed that attendance was definitely down. By 6 pm on Sunday, it was starting to look like a ghost town. The aisles in the Grand Place were definitely empty. One of the vendors we like to patronize said that their business was off at least 75%.

That said, Lynne and I still managed to spend about $250. Was it worth it? Well, as they say in Texas - Hell Yeah!

posted by The Dog @ 10:09 PM