Flightster

Life is (a) Fair

• by Colin Wright
• on August 3rd, 2010
• Leave a Comment

We had been in the car all day long, and we were all acutely aware of this fact.

Legs numb, butts chair-shaped and attitudes a little worse for the wear, we were doing our best to keep spirits high, but it’s 11 hours from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Columbia, Missouri, and at about 9 hours in, we were done. Patience gone. Ready to sleep. Let’s get this over with.

Nerves were frayed. And what was the smell? Ugh.

We were passing through a VERY small town right on the Mississippi River – there was a bar labeled ‘BAR,’ a few ramshackle houses and an old man meandering around a crossroad – we saw the strangest site off in the distance: a lone motorcyclist, flying through the air behind a horizon of tightly-knit trees.

It was like we had seen an angel; our eyes lit up, smiles crept across our faces and the weight of the world seemed to become featherlight.

How did he get up there?! What launched him?! There are PEOPLE in this town (other than the old guy)?! We had to investigate.

As we drove on, our questions piled higher as another motorcyclist took the first’s spot, then another, then another. Something was up (pun intended).

We rounded a corner our questions were answered. In the dying light of the evening we saw an enormous Ferris Wheel, Zipper, roller coaster and a dozen or so other carnival rides. The blinking lights immediately brightened our spirits, and the throngs of people made us all shout ‘YES! THAT!’

We made for the parking lot, paid our $10 entry fee and wandered – wide-eyed – into the cacophony of the Pike County State Fair.

Hell. Yes. Missouri.

The first thing we looked for were the cyclists that initially caught our attention back on the road. After a little searching we found a huge, bumpy, dirt track with a full-flung motocross presentation underway, riders flying this way and that, each with an apparent deathwish and the crowd at the edge of their seats, waiting for said wish to be granted. The sound of their bikes carried across the fairground, and their padding made them look like characters out of Halo.

Even more enticing was the rodeo going on at the adjoining arena, where a little person rodeo clown named Porkchop was dancing sensually and playfully bantering with the MC between feats of strength and skill that involved people, cows and horses.

Knowing nothing about rodeo, I can only assume the names of these events were ‘Guy Tries to Stay on Angry Horse for Longer Than a Few Seconds and Sometimes Hits His Head on the Fence When Thrown Off,’ ‘Group of Cornfed Teenagers Attempt to Lasso and Tie Up and Milk a Scared Cow,’ and the ever popular ‘Cute Girls on Horses Ride Around Quickly While Showing Enough Skin That I Felt a Little Uncomfortable with All the Little Kids in the Audience.’

After watching in awe for a half hour or so, we did what any red-blooded American would do: we got Budweisers and a Blooming Onion.

If you’re unfamiliar with the traditional Blooming Onion, picture an onion bulb diced up so that it’s opened up like a big, scary flower, dipped in breading, and with about 3000 more calories than the worst thing on a fast food menu. Add ranch dressing for dipping, and you’ve got a light version of what we ate.

It was delicious. Though I don’t generally care for Budweiser, it is THE beer of small-town America, and if one of us had been sipping a Sauvignon Blanc or indulging in a Grolsch, we probably would have gotten even stranger looks than we were already receiving. The watery suds were part of the experience.

After finishing up the Onion and beers, we moved on to the rides. The lines were long, but we queued up for what they were calling the Sizzler (but which I’ve always seen called the Scrambler before…off-brand carnival rides? Really?). After waiting for about 15 minutes, someone got off the ride and fell to the ground, gripped by some kind of seizure. We decided this was a sign that we shouldn’t utilize the rides at this particular Fair, so we made for the games.

Five dollars, a few dozen mosquito bites and two buckets of rings thrown at bottlenecks later (we REALLY wanted to win that giant stuffed banana), we made for the exit and our car…back to the surreal reality we’ve created on this road trip and away from the even more surreality we found in Pike County, Missouri.

Colin Wright

Colin Wright is a minimalist, branding expert and serial entrepreneur. While running his blog Exile Lifestyle ,his branding studio Colin Is My Name and his e-publishing business ebookling. Colin travels the world (moving to a new country every 4 months), meeting up with amazing people, giving talks (to audiences ranging from tech industry professionals to college students to Catholic school girls) and hunting down new and interesting experiences.