All The Fun of The Fair

The Texas State Fair runs for about 21 days, last week of Sept to mid Oct approximately. It is renowned for its fried food (just about everything imaginable gets dipped in batter and fried), the midway, the exhibits, concerts, giant Ferris wheel, Big Tex, the UT-OU game, and so on. But the highlight for us last year were the pig races.

In a giant barn, four pigs race around a "U" shaped track, no doubt motivated by a big bucket of sloppy stuff at the end. Pure carnival genius. Each section of the crowd is obliged to cheer for a hog appointed to them by the MC. The pigs have names like "Snoop Hoggy Hog", "Squealy Nelson" and "Hammah Montana". Each race last about 8 seconds. Pigs can fly - when there is food at the end of the race. Great entertainment value, especially when the organizers threw a curve ball and had a pot bellied pig in one race - he was not very fast. It harkens back to different, simpler time.

And to my knowledge none of the piggies ended up as deep fried bacon - which is an actual item on the menu at the Fair. Last year we tried the deep fried butter - you could feel it congeal in your arteries... This year we decided for the sake of logevity to give the Fair a pass. Texas succumbed to the Sooners in the Red River Shootout and will probably fall out of the Top 25 for the first time in years. These little guys could have their own team - just don't tell them what the ball is made from.