Went to the state fair yesterday. It was frikkin' mobbed. Seriously, we've been pretty much every year this century, I think and I don't remember it ever being more crowded. I'm sure that had a lot to do with it being warm and sunny after the craptacular cold and cloudy first few days. Well, that's craptacular for the mass mind. I actually prefer the fair when it's a bit cooler. Altho maybe that's just cos it holds the crowds down. Unlike some years, I didn't really plan things out and figure out where we wanted to go. Which wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been so frikkin' mobbed. We did stumble onto the lime fizz stand (and it was excellent). Found the deep fried corn stand but were disappointed to discover that it was a whole ear battered and deep fried. I know it's heresy but I think there are some things that are just too big to deep fry. My only regret is that we didn't find the stand selling chicken fried bacon so I cannot resolve the batter coated v. not batter coated controversy. Alas. Still, a fine afternoon. Some new things I noticed this year: big pen o' baby chickens and ducks in the main display hall; woman demonstrating skiff building in the Village of Yesteryear; history of NC State Fair display, including ads recruiting "husky young Americans" to join the tank corps in WWI (did you know that the fairgrounds were the site of Ft. Polk, a tank training ground?) and fight "the Boche"; mad skillz of the folks at the ribbon fry stand, who managed to invert an entire fryer basket of fried potato chips onto a paper plate, time and time again.