Missouri State Fair 2014 Experience

Each year in August our town of 22,000+ people braces for an influx of people from all around the state and beyond. Traffic becomes interesting, planned errand running which usually takes a short time becomes a car trip that makes life interesting. For 11 days the main roads become a traffic jam most don't know how to navigate.

The fair is a time for people watching, riding rides, eating over the top food (a corn dog is always a must have). Fried green tomatoes, funnel cakes, pineapple cones, its definitely not a stick to your diet form of entertainment.

This year although the weather was cloudy (at least it didn't rain), humid, (I found damp spots on my body that I never thought about being damp before) it was 9+ hours of walking, eating, sitting, observing, and watching two 4 year old girls have the time of there lives. Hadleigh and her friend Kyra got to experience new foods they had never tried and rides they were big enough and daring enough to ride this year. They are definitely growing up. While they grow up the adults in attendance (my daughter Jennifer, David and myself) started to feel our ages pretty quickly.

I remember the first trips to the fair we made when our kids were both kids themselves. Now they bring there kids to experience the fair like they have done over the years. We all find ourselves shaking our heads at the differences between then and now.  Times have definitely changed.

After seven hours of eating and taking the little ones around, it was time for David and I to do something we hadn't done in years (usually David isn't home around fair time so it was a special touch to celebrate our 30th Anniversary). When we saw Sara Evans last at the fair she was an unknown to Nashville country music but a New Franklin, MO hometown favorite that we remembered at the Budweiser tent stage. She put on a great concert of all her first hits and now her most recent songs also.  It was a family reunion of sorts when she brought her two sisters who were her former backup singers to do a song. At her encore she preformed a Bruno Mars song with a twist "When I was Your Man" and Neon Trees "Everybody Talks". Joe Nichols opened for Sara and also put on a great performance. He is definitely back.

The fair is the swan-song to summer with days later the school year will be starting and fall will be just around the corner. Enjoy the rest of summer, I know I will be.