Yesterday with mother in law in tow we went to the Florida State Fair. It happened to be a gorgeous day in the low 80's and partly cloudy so just when we got really hot the sun would hide behind a cloud for at least 15 minutes. We mostly went for the people watching. The only thing I wanted to do was shoot water in a clowns mouth with a really heavy metal squirt gun until the balloon growing above his head popped and the first person to do so would win a cheesy prize. I haven't been to a state fair since I was a child in Michigan and saw Roberta Flack perform. This fair had more rides, midway games and food than you can imagine!! There were at least 3 of everything: Fun houses, roller coasters, Pork butt on a stick tents, spinny make-you-throw-up rides, actually, there were about 10 of those. We walked the midway in search of the water/balloon game. Every game began to look the same and I was getting incredibly bummed. They had to have it didn't they? Then finally across from the Crazy Mouse rollercoaster - there it was!! John and I sat down, I picked #21 for my age and because it had a blue balloon. It was $3.00 a piece, a far cry from the .50 cents I used to pay, the prizes were somewhat better I must admit. But there was no clown head to shoot water into his mouth it was a plain ol target. The heavy metal squirt gun? Gone. This was some state of the art stealth-like water gun with two buttons!! Mother in law watched over Rita and took action photos of us playing the game. I won a sock monkey. Not just any sock monkey, but one that makes jungle noises and has a red ass. I will post pictures shortly.The people watching was stellar as expected. I tried to get shots of mullets and various people but the digital age has slowed me down. I can no longer capture pictures on an instant and trying to be sly about it can be difficult as well. I will tell you there were long mullets, short mullets and mostly overprocessed mullets. It was awesome!Another highlight of the fair was the livestock. We saw horses, cows, miniature ponies, rabbits, chickens, roosters, eggs & ducks. The cows were by far the best but Rita had no interest in anything furry at this point in her life. John kept mentioning how hungry he was for a steak. There was a "mooternity ward" where we could watch a baby calf being born. I asked John what kind of livestock I could raise at the beach so I could enter next years fair. He looked at me as though I was mad. Surely I could have a pygmy goat?! After the whole deal with E coli break out last year we avoided petting the animals. I didn't have a dire need to pet a cow anyway - once you've petted a cow is there really any reason to pet another? There was also contests for woodworking, quilting, aquariums, cheese, photography, wine making (no free samples) and exhibits of all the counties in Florida. I don't remember anything like this from my childhood. Maybe I spent all of my time outside the beer tent waiting for my father to give me more money to go ride spinny make-you-throw-up rides.