David and I took yesterday off to go to the Louisiana State Fair! Of course, this is one of our yearly traditions and it is one of my favorites. We always carve out one day to take off from work and have a fair day.
The day before our fair day turned out to be a day of storms and rain. I watched the news long enough to see that there was a 90% chance of rain all day on Tuesday, and then also a 90% chance of rain all day on Wednesday. (our day!) Needless to say, I spent a lot of time on Tuesday just glaring at the sky. Why would it possibly want to rain and ruin our fun?
Wednesday we woke up to a bleak day of nothing but gray clouds and a miserable drizzle. On top of that, the dampness in the air made it feel pretty chilly and just generally gross. I started thinking of all the fun we were going to miss: feeding carrots to my giraffes (my favorite!), getting my “I love milk” magnets and cow pencils, eating tater twisters with cheese (and all other manner of fair food), and walking down the midway laughing as we watch workers repair rides that were shaky-looking in the first place. As we were leaving the house, I solemnly handed David my giraffe money and told him to hold on to my “carrot money” for me.
As we drove towards Shreveport the drizzle did not get any better. We decided it was not in our best interest to go to the fair. We would only be cold and wet and it would be hard to enjoy ourselves. So, we switched to our next plan: Monjuni’s for lunch and some shopping.
Our first stop was at CenturyTel Center in Bossier to purchase tickets for the TransSiberian Orchestra next month. I am really excited that we’re finally going to get to go! The TSO comes to LA at Christmas time every year, but normally their concerts are on the weekends and we’re just not able to go. This year, the concert is on a Wednesday and now we have tickets!
Yes, normally I would purchase stuff like this online. As I was researching seating and pricing for this event it quickly became clear that it would be a mistake to purchase these tickets online. Ticketmaster handles this process and their transaction fees are outrageous. For us to purchase the tickets online, the fees would almost be as much as if we were buying three tickets. Two tickets for the price of three? What a deal!….heheheh….um….hmmm
So, since we were already in the area, we went over to CenturyTel and bought tickets in person. No extra fees - great quick way to save money!
We passed by the fairgrounds on the way to CenturyTel. Poor fair! It was nearly completely deserted. There were two short rows of cars….and then like eight school buses. SCHOOL BUSES??!?!? They took kids to the fair on a day like that? Those children are going to be out in the gross weather all day long. They will be walking germ factories by the weekend.
Lunch was next – at Monjuni’s. YUMMY!!!! We also finally got to try out our Restaurant.com gift certificate! Exciting!! Restaurant.com is a really neat idea. You buy gift certificates at below face value and then you use them at the restaurant for the original amount. The restaurants get advertisement through their site, and then they attract new customers to their store because they get a discount on their food. I bought this gift certificate during one of their specials, so I only paid $2 for a $25 gift certificate. That’s pretty cool! What’s even better is that you are able to print your certificate practically as soon as you checkout online. So, really, you could buy your certificate on the way out the door to go eat!
There aren’t many restaurant choices in this area, but there are tons of choices in larger areas like Houston and Dallas. Either way, we majorly feasted at Monjuni’s! We were thankful to get $25 off our meal, hehe. We ate toasted ravioli to start with. Then I had baked cheese ravioli with marinara and alfredo sauce (my usual), and David had the sampler: a muffaletta, spaghetti with a gigantic meatball, and lasagna. It was very delicious! This was David’s first time to get to go to Monjuni’s. He loved it! I knew he would!
We did a little shopping afterwards until we decided it was time for dessert.
David decided he wanted ice cream, so we got him a cake batter milkshake from Maggie Moo’s. (Believe me, if you were diabetic, you wouldn’t get through one sip of this!) I decided I wanted to be fancy, so I went to Geauxsicles. Our local ABC affiliate (KTBS) has segments on their morning news that highlight places of business in the area. “Ark-la-tex Made” highlights various businesses that got their start in this area (and there are a lot, surprisingly!) and “Ark-la-tex Best” highlights neat businesses in the area.
Geauxsicles was featured a few weeks ago and I was immediately hooked in. They make and sell gourmet popsicles! Each one has a fleur-de-lis on it, and they come in all sorts of exotic flavors. I got “Sublime” which was a key lime flavored popsicle on the front, and then had a chocolate cookie crust on the back. It was good! I also want to try the peanut butter and jelly, and if I ever get brave enough: Hot Passion (pineapple and passionfruit with jalapeno! Interesting!)
The neatest thing about the building is that they have an old-fashioned teller window as their drive through window! I was enchanted. It was so old! They had a working transaction drawer and a speaker system. I asked the person behind the counter about it and she said that they love it but they almost never found anyone who could come get the drawer working for them. It is so old that hardly anyone knows how to fix them anymore. Neat. I was impressed.
David and I decided we were pretty much ready to get back to Marshall by this point, so we started heading towards home. That’s when I realized — it was no longer raining! Maybe we COULD make it to the fair! I pitched the idea to him and we decided we’d give it a try. Entrance to the fair and parking are free during the week anyway (until 3), so we wouldn’t lose any money if we didn’t stay long. Off we went!
The fair parking lot was still basically deserted – and by this point the buses were gone. I was getting all excited about getting to see my giraffes after all!
It was much cooler than what we expected and still fairly windy. We went directly to the giraffes first. There was only one giraffe this year! We asked, and they said the other one “retired” and I refuse to think of what that really means!! The remaining giraffe was standing in his little shelter and didn’t seem overly enthusiastic about the idea of coming out in the weather for carrots. I couldn’t blame him, hehe. He finally sauntered over to us for his food. :) Yay! I just love my giraffe. We fed him quickly and as soon as he was finished chewing, he was back off to his shelter. That made me happy.
We walked around for a few more minutes before we decided it was time to go. The day was just too miserable. There were puddles everywhere and the grassy areas were muddy. The place was just completely empty! Most of the zoo animals were put up and lots of the little booths were empty. Most of the manned booths had their merchandise covered in plastic and the people were shivering quietly to themselves. Almost all the food booths were open but there was no one around to buy anything. We passed one booth where the guy inside was propped up in a chair completely sound asleep! He was dead to the world and who could blame him? He probably hadn’t seen a customer all day. We didn’t even make it to the midway or even very far down the other sections of the fair.
I’ll say one thing I learned about myself this day: It would not do me well to take on a job as a carny. hehehehe. I am sure there are many, many, many reasons why I would not like that job, but seeing the fair on this day really confirmed that this is not the job for me! I wouldn’t be able to stand there and freeze all day in that deserted place. So, if anyone ever offers me that job, I will have to calmly just turn them down.
The other thing about the fair was the way it was just completely transformed into something totally different from what we normally see. We have been to the fair for many years now and I’ve never felt the same about it as I did walking through there yesterday. Normally the fair is a bright, cheerful, happy place with music and bright colors and lots of random noise. This version of the fair was very quiet, muted, and forlorn. It was almost as if the normally festive colors had been dulled down just for the day. I felt like I was watching a dream sequence in a movie – it felt that surreal! It’s funny how different things look when the facade is taken away. (and I suppose we could say the same thing about a lot of what we see in life – it isn’t always what it first seems.)
All in all, through, it was a great day! We are already convinced that our fair day next year will be bright and sunny and beautiful!
