State Fair of Texas

As expected, Texas knows how to throw a party. We headed down to Fair Park for the Texas State Fair, along with a visit to the newly renovated Children's Aquarium. Unfortunately my camera battery was dead, so I didn't get any photos of the museum itself. The boys enjoyed it but it was only about half-populated, the rest of the exhibits were forthcoming.

So on to the State Fair, where the main attraction (for us at least) was the food. Texas has some sort of "Tex Choice" contest every year for fried foods, and the top eight finalists were all featured at the Fair. We didn't sample them all, but we did try quite a few.

We also caught a few shows - Dog Tricks, the Pirates of the Caribbean high dive and comedy show, pig racing, the USMC Drum Corps, and at the end of the day a parade and light show. It was hot, and tiring, and the kids were a pretty big handful, but overall worth a trip.

Pirates of the Caribbean High Dive Show

US Marine Corps Drum & Bugle Corps

The foods at the Fair are, to be honest, kind of ridiculously expensive, but that's a Fair for you. $3 water, $5 hot dogs, $10 turkey legs, that sort of thing. In the interest of posterity we indulged in as many of the fried options as we could a)find and b)stomach. You'd be surprised how quickly you get tired of fresh fried foods. Or maybe you wouldn't.

The first thing was the Fried Texas Frito Pie, which won "Best Taste" this year. It was actually pretty good, probably in large part due to the fact that half of it (the Fritos) are fried to begin with. Imagine chili and cheese inside a nugget of Frito, and you have the idea.



Of course both Liam and Logan had to try the corn dogs. Liam got a foot-long, but the half-as-big, just-as-expensive fresh Corny Dogs were better.



Winner of the "Most Creative" award was Fried Beer, which was certainly creative, but not all that great. Fried foods are best when hot, beer is best when cold, and the two just don't mix. Imagine taking a bite of pretzel with a swig of beer that's been sitting in a hot car for 8 hours, and you have Fried Beer.



The Fried Banana Pudding was much better - banana pudding/puree inside a soft fried pie-ish crust, with sugar and whipped cream. I dock a point for the entirely misleading food kiosk photo, which featured 800% more whipped cream.



Jill's goal was to find the Fried Chocolate - a white chocolate candy bar and cherry inside a brownie, then dipped in chocolate cake batter and fried. Tasty, but not all that different from a warm-from-the-oven brownie dessert.



At the same booth was the Fried Peanut Butter & Jelly & Banana sandwich. Tasted mostly like crispy french toast with a smidge of peanut butter. I didn't even notice the banana, but I only had one bite.



Fried Lemonade was a late-in-the-day selection, once our stomachs had recovered somewhat. It was nothing more than lemon cake balls coated in lemon sugar sauce, but it was still pretty good.



At the end of the day, the final attraction was the Illumination Sensation light show. I was expecting more lasers, but they did have big pillars of fire which made up for it.