L.A. County Fair, 2011

It was a good year at the fair, and included meeting their current broom maker, who is an excellent and well-connected gentleman. For one thing, he did the brooms for the Harry Potter movies. The ironwork you see on some of the brooms was done by his friend, who worked on the ships used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Somewhere I have some pictures of when we went to see our broom maker at a different event, which was pretty cool, in its seriously retro way.

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Spinning (as in thread, not as in the gym euphemism for stationary bikes) seemed to be a theme that year. The art building had quite the display of historical spinning methods, and there was a spinning competition with well over a dozen contestants using either wheels or drop spindles. I had no idea it was that popular a pastime.

In the art building's courtyard we met a man who used to live across the street from my grandparents, and had been a friend of my Mom when they were kids. He runs a neon museum in Los Angeles, would you believe.

There's also a few pictures in there of one of my crazy friends trying out a trapeze.

Speaking of crazy, I should probably explain the paper people who show up now and then. Ever hear of Flat Stanley? My brother and his wife currently live in China, but used to live very close to where my house is. So we have "flat" versions of them which we take on adventures, and to places they loved to visit, such as the county fair. The pictures can let them live a bit of their old lives, vicariously - not that they lack for adventure right now! There are a bunch of that sort of picture I don't have in these little slideshows, but I figure it would behoove me to let you know what's up with that.

The horse arena was hosting agility competitions when we went by it, and I recognized one of the riders, an old friend who loves draft horses. Now, seeing drafties running agility courses is like watching 18-wheelers navigate parking cones and somehow not knocking them over. Not very fast, but entirely amazing. I caught her attention and when they were done we were brought back to the stable and prep area, to meet the various owners and riders and mount up for a brief ride, ourselves. For most people, I imagine riding a draft horse is like sitting on a table, but as an oversized human, they feel just right to me. Plus, I neither feel vaguely guilty about having them carry my bulk, nor wonder if I'm going to touch the ground on both sides with my feet.

On the opposite side of the fair, we discovered a pair of piratical performers doing songs we knew, and it didn't take long for Kristie to end up on stage. As usual. Returning other days to see them again, I also did some performing with them, both harmonizing and playing whistles & bodhran (that's an Irish drum). Good guys, and I wish they were around here more often. You might recognize them from my more recent county fair photos, the ones from this year.

We did none of the loud, expensive, annoying things that people so often go to the United States' largest county fair to do (rides, carnie games, endless As Seen On TV shopping, deep fried everything) and as much as possible of the things far fewer people even pay attention to. About normal, in my world. The above is more a sampling than anything: art competition halls and such aren't very interesting for me to photograph.