The Sui Generis Personality of Small Town Fairs

This is the week of the Southwest Washington Fair, so that's where I spent my Tuesday afternoon and evening. As is typical with the SWW Fair, there were many cows and llamas -- or alpacas, I cannot tell the two apart -- and pigs. Although it's fun to see those animals, I hate walking past them. The cows and pigs smell unbearably bad and the llamas stare at me in their creepy llama-esque way. The llamas are especially bad at night when their stalls are dark and you're walking alone down a long, empty aisle that strongly resembles an ally and you see sets of big, shiny llama eyes staring out at you from the darkness.

Apart from the animals, the fair consists of overly-expensive rides, a redneck demolition derby, vendors selling things that don't work, and food that shouldn't be eaten. I'll grant that the vendors and the food and rides can probably be found at any fair. The demolition derby, on the other hand, I think is unique to redneck fairs. I had never watched it before, (never really feeling the urge to), but this time I decided to watch a round to see what it was like. It was boring and probably wasn't worth the risk and gasoline put into it. Still, everyone else liked it.

Oh yes, and yesterday I found that kangaroo rats are adept swimmers. I witnessed one jumping into the water, diving down several inches, and swimming away completely submerged! It was very graceful and unusual looking.