Destination v. Journey, Part II

Friday night, after visiting Mama Dot in the hospital and Aunt Fran at her senior apartment (and eating BBQ at the Commissary), we finally gave in to Casey's begging and pleading and took him to the fair. Again, I could not figure out why he wanted to go because I knew it would be a waste of money -- I usually spend all my time at fairs and amusement parks trying to get Casey to ride even the tamest of kiddie rides ("Casey. Seriously. The bananas are just going around in a circle, they don't even move up and down. Don't you want to ride? No? Really? Fine. Your loss.") But something got into Casey Friday night, starting with the Fun Slide. I cannot believe he walked all the way up those stairs and let that creepy looking guy tell him to get on his burlap sack and slide down. But he did! See --



I was shocked. He couldn't believe it himself, either. Buoyed by our success on the Fun Slide, we moved on to a couple of fun houses -- the Sponge Bob one was particularly lame, but what do you expect out of a fun house themed around a sponge? The others were better -- one had a ball pit in it and my sister, who spent a few years as a Dollywood employee nearly vomited at the idea of Casey jumping into a ball pit maintained by carnies. She said it's not the balls so much that get disgusting, it's what's under the balls. She doesn't have kids, so she's never seen what happens to the inside of a sippy cup half full of chocolate milk after it sits in your car for three days in August. After that, a little schmuck at the bottom of a ball pit doesn't turn your stomach anymore.

But I digress. Casey's next big achievement was riding the race cars. I think he thought they were like the ones at Disney where you actually control the speed of the cars yourself. He got into the car, though, and immediately got this panicked look on his face. You can see that he figured out he had no control over the situation and that freaked him out. That's what freaks him out about all rides (that's my problem with airplanes -- if I'm not flying the thing, then surely it's going to plummet to the earth).



I think the cars ride was the one that got Casey hooked on the adrenaline rush because after that he was willing to ride most anything in the kids' section. He rode:

the monster trucks



the motorcycles



and the airplanes



And then we ran out of tickets and I wasn't willing to buy any more. So all Mace got to ride was this little car we rented for him at the entrance:



If you think he looks kind of dazed, you're right -- it's already 10:00 in this picture. The only thing keeping him awake at this point are YaYa's shoes.

But it wasn't a total dud of a night for Mace. He vanquished some goats with his blow-up sword.



He also vanquished his Aunt Nanny -- but she was fighting with a blow-up guitar, so he clearly had the advantage (and the stance! Maybe he'll be a fencer -- I've always dreamed of having a kid who grew up to fence! Not stolen goods, swords.)



And thus endeth our night at the Delta Fair. I learned that the fair is just as dirty today as it was when I was a kid and that they still race pigs there. Sorry, didn't get a picture of that. But the next day I got some pictures of ducks in a fountain that I'll show you tomorrow night.