My first stop was the scooter rental and I was so glad they still had some left when I arrived because there is NO way I could have seen any where near as much as I did without it. It was 85 degrees and sunny, so I did my best to keep Dazzle off the hot blacktop which in most places was pretty easy.
We spent 4 hours touring the Fairgrounds and I think we saw almost everything! On foot, even for an able bodied person, it would have taken way longer that that! Here's the map of the grounds (click to enlarge):
I was really impressed by how accessible everything was. Nice wide isles, ramps and wide doors. Only draw back was no HC remote doors, but there were plenty of people nice enough to hold doors open for me.
Dazzle did really great with all the noises, including loud carnival rides and this chainsaw demo.
He was facinated by the critters, but I didn't let him get too close. We avoided the rabbit/chicken barns :-)
" LOOK OUT! There's a huge otter behind you!"
Dazzle was freaked out by the huge fish in these tanks :-) He wouldn't get between the scooter and the fish! He wanted to be sure to keep me and the scooter between him and the alien beings.
I think these goats are really beautiful. No idea what kind they are.
One of the goats was just as curious about Dazzle as Daz was about him
Goat calming signal? :-) (He started to scratch)
Again with the alien fish! He really wanted to look, but was ready to bolt away if the aliens attacked :-)
Getting braver...
The longer he watched, the more relaxed he got that they weren't going to jump out and swallow him
They often swam with their top fins out of the water and Dazzle was both facinated and freaked out at the same time by that.
They seemed as curious about the people as the people were about them. I think they were called paddle fish and they had a flat "bill" with no teeth.
This statue was created for the fair (a couple dancing). I used a head collar on Dazzle so he wouldn't try to pull the scooter like he does with a wheelchair.
These acrobats were AMAZING!
Balancing on one hand, on top of a stack of chairs, that are balanced on 4 bottles!
It's hard to see the bottles at the bottom. Click on the photo to make it larger.
Art out of cans. VERY creative pieces! The "smoke" is bags of marshmallows :-)
"Souper Bowl" The ball is made of sardine tins
Another view. You can see part of the "combine" to the right. I tried to get a photo of it, but it came out really burry for some reason.
Mega pumpkin carving! Yes, that says it's a 444 lb pumpkin! The winner of the biggest pumpkin was over 800 lbs! I didn't get a photo of it though (it wasn't carved and was actually rather ugly :-).
LOTS and LOTS of Legos!! I was in awe of these! Sorry for so many photos :-) This first one is Lucas Oil stadium. The "Big Screen" in the corner was actually a working TV screen!! Click to enlarge. Sorry it's a bit blurry, the lighting was poor.
Info about the lego stadium
The back of the stadium (no idea why this photo refuses to center):
This one is a Nascar track:
Some close ups:
This was a stunning set-up from the ocean to the mountains. It said it took 8 hours to reconstruct it in place. I don't recall how long it said it took to build it originally but it was a pretty long time!
Some close ups:
LOVE the sun bathers :-)
River valley (not sure why Shamu is trying to jump the waterfall :-):
Along the front of each display, there were pages saying "can you find..." with multiple things listed. People of all ages were having fun locating the various things. Can you find Darth Vader? :-)
Mountain Spring (Can you find the moonshine still?)
A permanent fixture at the fairgrounds is the Hook's Historical Drug Store. A VERY cool place! It serves old time fountain drinks and sodas.
Over all a VERY enjoyable day to take my mind off our recent loss.
