The State Fair

I love the California annual state fair held each year in Arden.

Mostly because it reminds me of our melas back home.

The crowds and the noises, the smell and the near chaos.
Bright colors and lights.
Exotic and fun foods like corn on a stick, hot-dog on a stick, old lady's hair, apple caramels, fudges, freshly squeezed lemonades,
Frozen lemonades on a stick, steaks, kettle corns.....
The food looks great, but tastes yuck! (Well, not always, there are some delightful surprises)
The lemonades, corn and Texas bbq are our regular.
The prices are either ridiculously cheap or steep.

Fair price!

The bright lights

Interesting toys, and stuffed animals everyone seems to have won.
The joolas, the ferris wheels, the Russian circus stall, haunted house are all just the same as back home.
Stalls for the usual jewellary, local crafts, Native American crafts, appliances and stuff. There are stalls of DMV, county stalls
promoting local products and tourism.
All sorts of shows - cook shows, Hollywood move production show, safety shows, baby shows...
Each year there is at least one stall with Indian stuff invariably manned by a snooty chap. wonder why?

The differences are in the rodeo shows, the petting zoos, the animal races and the live music.
The zoo has domestic animals like cows, sheep, llama, pigs and even deer and kangaroos. This is a great attraction for kids of all
Ages, since they come in contact to pet these animals. Seems silly seeing these animals, but then this is one of the few chances
that kids here get to know these animals.

How excited can you get to see a cow or a donkey?? after seeing them all over the place in India.

Rebecca was excited, and she just as the other kids went about happily petting and laughing.
Hey, sheep come here! come here, donkey !

She rode a pony too, all smiles and totally carefree. What surprised me more is the confidence that she went with all by herself.
Takes after me, Iam sure ;)




Seems they used to have elephant rides along with the horse rides earlier.
I like the sky rides and the monorail too. The sky ride is a wench that moves on wire, it’s a view from the top. The monorail is a
rail that rides up the sky throughout the whole complex, giving an aerial perspective of the fair.
and the rides.
oh, the rides, this time I went for the free-fall among other extremes. Ohhh! Fun.
Still cannot get myself for the ones that turn upside-down in mid-air or even higher at relatively fast speeds, that is truly
Freaky.
Nah! So, far this is thrill enough for me.

We look for the home-made dip stall, an elderly couple selling dip ingredients. We meet them each year, chatting a bit. They have
moved to Texas now from San Francisco to be closer to their grand kids. Good dips too.

The finale is fireworks each night at 10pm. Beautiful explosions in the sky.

Worth it.


We did not attend Paul Dhinakaran's meeting.
Too busy.
Too lazy
Just didn’t want to go.
He’s not worth all that trouble.
No one else's interested - cos it's on Sunday evening. Saturday or Friday night might have been a different story.
All of the above excuses
Beats me though, how Marysville, a tiny town could arrange for a meeting where the speaker would only come for a crowd of 500 or more, while Sacramento could not.