State Fair of Texas... the way it's suppos-ta be

The State Fair was freakin AWESOME!!!! We walked around the entire day with a HUGE smiles from ear to ear! There would be no way to see all the goods in just one day, but we squeezed in as much as we could. If I would not have insisted on seeing the "birds of the world" show TWICE, we probably could have seen much, much more, oh well. Here are an assortment of the ba-gillion pics i got:

Here is Kyle with his world (or at least Texas) famous FLETCHERS CORN DOG. Fletcher's were supposedly the first corn dogs EVER!

side note: During last nights episode of King of the hill, they mentioned fletchers dogs, probably not the first... or last time.

Petting Zoo




I have no idea what kind of animal this is but I loved its face.
The pigs were my FAVORITE! They were insane!
Yes, this is chicken-fried-bacon! (sorry pigs... this was a one time deal)
Paxton and my mom taking in a little of my favorite fried treat... fried peanut butter, jelly & banana sandwich, mmmmmmmmmmM.
We watched  "dancing with the dogs," and this was by far the best performer! I can totally see my mom doing this with her champion, boomer... watch out State Fair of Texas, you could be competing with that pair soon.


Here is where we start the "birds of the world" show. This has to be one of the most amazing shows, and they have been performing here for 20 years! The birds were like their pets and would respond to the handlers calling their names! This bird just sat on the tree with this guy...BUT he was HUGE, and so beautiful. In one part of the show they released an eagle from one of the carriages from the ferris wheel you see in the above pic, and it flew out and dive bombed the audience... and then landed on stage! WOWO
This owl's gig was to fly out over the crowd, land, and then fly back and land on this stoop that was right above a volunteer's head while they tried to take a VERY CLOSE UP of the bird flying toward them....WELL I volunteered (you can kinda see me on the screen behind the owl). I was shaking the entire time. I was looking thru the viewfinder watching the owl fly directly toward me! I saw those orange eyes the entire time. I did not get the shot (i know, what kind of photographer misses that shot... ill tell you, one that is used to taking pics of buildings!... and in my defense, it came at me very VERY FAST) but I will never forget looking into that birds eyes as it was looking at me as a target.

This is a stork flying directly above the crowd's head. ALL of the birds would fly this close to the crowd including a Indian Condor with a 10 foot wing span!... yea that's right! (I am getting giddy just remembering it)

Big Tex & Me 

side note: he seemed a LOT bigger when I was younger.
Big Tex styling Kyle's hair.


We headed out of the Fair Grounds a little before dusk in order to get over to the Granada Theater to see Neko Case. I would have loved to get some night/light pictures at the fair, BUT seeing Neko was worth missing the lights. Here is my last fair shot... what a great day.