California State Fair, 2005

On Saturday evening, I joined Steve, Jan, Gayle Wakefield, Jennifer Bonomo, and daughter Sarah at Cal Expo, for the California State Fair, which opened Thursday. It was a pleasant evening. I spent about $50 on parking, tickets, food, and not much else, since I came away apparently empty-handed - oh, but then there was the ladder!

I arrived shortly after 5 p.m. and entered through the West gate of the fairgrounds. There was an FMX Freestyle Motocross exhibition going on at the instant on the Midway. Daredevil riders raced up a ramp and leaped 30 feet into the air on their lightweight motocross motorcycles, and performed stunts while suspended in midair (here is a Web Site about the sport), prior to landing on the opposite ramp (a la Evel Knievel). It was wonderful to watch, but I couldn't endure too much, because it just looked so dangerous. The riders would dismount their cycles midair and extend their legs sideways while holding onto the handlebars before remounting in anticipation of landing. Even better, they would completely let go in midair, slip backwards, hold onto the seat from the back of the motorcycle, then pull themselves forwards in order to remount for landing. Excruciating, and delightful: one false move would have been quite disastrous!

I was under the vague understanding that the crew was somewhere on the other side of the fairgrounds, in or around a southern barbeque place. I quickly walked across the crowded fairgrounds, and stumbled into a floral garden based on a pirate theme. Lisa Lewis, who used to work with DMTC, and whom I now see at Step One step aerobics, was strolling around dressed as a pirate. She introduced me to her friend, who, with multiple piercings, actually did seem to resemble what we might think of as a real pirate!

On the east side of the fairgrounds, I found a southern barbeque place, but the crew was not there. After awhile, I began looking for a phone to call Steve. I still resist getting cell phone service (like this guy at The Onion), and so needed to find a public phone: that took awhile, though, since they've been eliminating public phones at the Cal Expo this year.

I finally reached Steve, and he said they were at the southern barbeque place (but apparently not the one I was near). "It's across from the line of cars, next to the Dish TV HDTV trailer, across from 'Hot Dog On A Stick': you can't miss it! Well, I was next to a line of cars, next to the Dish TV Sports Theater, adjacent to 'Hot Dog On A Stick', so this must be the place! Right? Right?

Wrong! They designed the State Fair so that no matter how specific Steve's instructions were, they weren't good enough. There were doppelganger southern barbeque places, lines of cars, and Dish TV complexes adjacent to each other, one on the east side, where I was, and one on the north side, where the crew was. Very confusing!

After finally locating the crew and eating, we headed to the race track, where the Bridget Maguire, master of raptors, was stationed with her crew from UC Davis, except that instead of hawks and eagles, she was mastering Japanese Quail for Fair purposes. Interesting little birds (especially for raptors). There were other birds there too, including an out-of-control macaw in an impossibly small cage.

After watching birds at the race track, we went outside and entered interesting modular manufactured houses for sale. Reminiscent of mobile homes, but much nicer, these homes are much cheaper than traditional housing and may represent the wave of the future in regards to low-cost housing.

After visiting the llamas, we went and revisited some of the commercial displays. There were these excellent tall ladders for sale: I regretted not purchasing one last year (my house is tall, and I just can't reach places that desperately need paint). Steve also got excited about the ladder, for theater purposes such as lighting and set painting. After a thoroughly unnecessary sales pitch, the Theater and myself decided to share the purchase price on the tallest, best-equipped ladder setup they had (with three to four weeks for delivery).

We kept walking around the fair. There was band playing, and the drummer was using drumsticks nearly as large as baseball bats - it was fun to see percussionist Steve's eyes upon seeing those drumsticks. We traveled around the fairgrounds on the monorail and witnessed the 10 p.m. fireworks. The crew departed at that point, and I wandered alone (and got lost) on the midway. The various midway game booths featured prizes that were much less interesting (almost entirely stuffed animals), and much tamer, than 5 to 10 years ago (I wonder why that is?) Interesting fair: I need to revisit the place and see the displays this time!


Steve spots yet another field on which to build a New Theater, or maybe place a manfactured home, or maybe a whole series of manufactured homes - heck, why not a whole community of affordable housing, equipped with hot tubs, TIVO, and reasonable season tickets, where musical theater is king: DMTC Acres anyone?


The monorail glides over and through the nighttime midway fantasy land of the 2005 California State Fair.