Ride the Pink Elephant

It was a Pink Elephant day. The sort we'd been hoping for all week long. The skies were blue with a few white puffy clouds. The sun was warm. The elephant was pink. What more could you want?

In case you haven't guessed, it's Alaska State Fair time again!

We had a full, fun day yesterday. Not only did we go to the Fair in the afternoon and evening, but we climbed a mountain, picked a BUNCH of blueberries and hit a few yard sales in the morning.

Getting back to the Fair... We picked up one of Tess's friends in Eagle River and headed north to the State Fairgrounds in Palmer. What would normally be a 20 minute drive at most ended up taking us about 1.5 hours due to fair traffic.

Alaska is notorious for having only one way in or out of places... including popular places like: the state fair, the city of Anchorage, etc. Why pave more roads? There's one there. So what if one jack-knifed tractor trailer means you either sit in traffic for 8 hours or (if you're lucky enough to not have left the house yet), you can opt for the "alternative route" which involves either an 8-hour drive past Mt. McKinley or hiking the 23-mile Crow Pass Trail through the Chugach Mountains.

But I digress.

So we arrived at the Fair just after 3pm. The fellas had tickets to see the Charlie Daniels Band at 7:30pm. So they had a few hours to see (and eat) what the Fair had to offer.

First things first... find a sausage dog. This turned out to be harder than it sounds. But we were finally able to accomplish this task. All our normal fair food favorites seemed to be in less plentiful supply this year. We may have to change our "favorites" to be Salmon on a Stick or Halibut Ice Cream... Hmmm.

We checked out the giant veggies, petted the piggies, and most important of all.... we rode the Pink Elephant! (twice!)