State fair - part I

State Fair of Texas - everything I possibly could have wished for in a state fair in the Lonestar State. And more.

Here are the First Round of Highlights (like the NFL draft - it is quite possible that there will be more rounds than you wanted to take part in). But just remember - Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round, so don't give up on anything to come.

So, going into the fair, we had a few goals:

- Look for everything redneck

- Do a lot of people watching, and make fun of everyone that you can

- Document as much as possible via photograph

- Eat 10 different fried foods (which is harder than it sounds, despite there being an abundance of fried delicacies/disasters)

This was in the line to buy "coupons" which are like wampum at the fair. You take real money and trade it in for coupons, which then serve as currency in the fair. Everything costs coupons, which are each worth 50 cents. All of this doesn't matter in any way, except that beers cost 10. Coupons, not dollars. Which was the teller told the man in front of Laura, they cost. And $10 per beer seems excessive. $5 a beer seems perfect. So perfection it was.

The worst part about this photo was that, right before it was taken, she was faking grabbing his butt. Which was much funnier. But Laura's face of disgust/sheer glory in this pic is worth at least one thousand words. Which is roughly 2 thousand coupons.

Enjoying a corn dog in front of "Big Tex" - the unofficial mascot of the Texas State Fair. This is the most southern I felt in a long time. Or ever. This was a grand kickoff to fried foods. #1 out of quest of 10. Although there was some argument if this counts, because everything else we were going to eat is normally eaten sans fryolator. However, corn dogs are always fried. Debate ensued. By the end of the evening, we counted it towards 10 (mostly because 10 was a lofty goal for us to attain).

The Cotton Bowl - in the middle of the state fairgrounds. It's also where they play OU-UT. Whatever, moving on.

This woman was in front of us during our first trip to the "We will fry literally anything, because we know you are crazy/dumb/fat enough to buy it" tent.

At this tent, we bought fried coke (which tastes, in Laura's words, "like coke flavored donuts"). She urged us not to get them. Ash and I got them anyways. We should have listened to Laura (which seems to be a theme of the weekend). We also had fried butter (hence, the name of this tent) covered in garlic - which ended up tasting like garlic bread. The butter melts and it's just fried batter covered in butter. Still fatty and artery clogging. I'm guessing this woman was not in line for a water and corn on the cob. She also might be going hunting post-fair and is wearing her finest hunting gear (another theme of the fair - weird - could have guessed that one).

Here's the menu... Hmm...a nice fried pizza washed down with an energy drink. Hearts all over Dallas are exploding everywhere tonight.

So after this little stop, we were 4 out of 10 on our fried food list - corn dogs, fried coke, fried texas cookie dough, fried butter. We all felt terrible, but knew that we had trudge on with our cause.

More to come later. But right now, I am too busy downing Bud Lights to keep blogging...