A Fair Weekend

Many people feel they come from a small town. Melissa and I (Deanna) know we come from a small town. It definitely had its good points and bad. It was hard being a high schooler living 80 miles from the nearest mall, but we definitely learned how to have fun just about anywhere. I suppose, like all good country songs, we spent our life dreaming about leaving our small town and then once we leave we find ourselves drawn back. One of the best times to be drawn back to the town we grew up in is the county fair. On Labor Day weekend the population swells from 1,000 to about 18,000. The fair has all the things a good small town fair should have. This last weekend was no different. One of my favorites is the exhibit barns:

These three pigs were obviously fans of NCIS:

We were always lucky to live just a few blocks from the fairgrounds. You have to cross the river to get there and lest you underestimate the beauty of the area, I snapped this photo on the way to the rodeo:

The next night was the demolition derby. This is no small event at the fair. The whole thing usually lasts about five hours and is full of crashes, cheering and spray painted logos.

This one was hilarious (nobody was hurt). The car on the bottom actually drove underneath the car on top.

The ironic thing is that as you peer through the exhaust and dust to make out the cars, the announcer reminds you there is no smoking in the grandstands.

This little gal was having way too much fun. She was also making eyes at David the whole time and at one point threw a slurpee straw at me... I don't blame her for being jealous though...

We had a great weekend. As we headed back over the mountains, I snapped this picture of the rain in the valley.

Gotta Love the Stache

Well, we managed to fit in the last outdoor movie (you may remember my description of these from last year's post). This weekend we got some action from Burt in "Smokey and the Bandit". As we set up our chairs we got to see some fun reminders of the movie.

Then we settled in for the ride. I have to admit I barely remembered the movie, but with movies like this it doesn't take long to grasp the deep characters and complex plot points. David put it something like this, "This is one of the most ridiculous movies, but it is just so fun to watch!" Well put! Of course by the end of the movie I think I had quoted every line of the song "Convoy" as well.

It brought back a bunch of memories from when we were kids and would go on road trips with our cousins with a CB radio in each car. I remember Dad's handle was Shutterbug and Mom's was "Livewire". I'm not sure I ever convinced anyone that mine was "Scooby Doo" but I was convinced in my head. Oh, but don't worry, we never were chased by a crazy Texas Sherrif, bootlegged, or drove a shiny black Trans Am... although we did have an awefully cool "heavy Chevy".

Hope you are still enjoying your summer too! There's still a little left!

We gonna back on outta here so keep the bugs off yer glass An' the bears off yer tail. We gonna catch ya on the flip-flop. This here's Scooby Doo on the side. We gone Bye, Bye...

*D*

Night Day at the Museum

Saturday was a day at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture... or "The MAC" as most people around Spokane call it. They have an exhibit there now with costumes from all sorts of different movies and TV shows I watched growing up. They had the actual costume Robin wore in the Batman and Robin TV series, the hat worn by The Wicked Witch of the West, Indiana Jones' leather jacket, a Ghostbuster's jumpsuit and proton pack, lots of Star Wars and Star Trek costumes, the list goes on and on. Oh, and we happened to be there the day some special guests showed up. Luckily I had a Star Wars expert with me to alleviate any cultural or translation issues.

Here we are with a Tusken Raider or a sand person. They're supposedly quite aggressive and vicious. I think it must be because the sand gets into everything and chafes which can make a being quite irritable. This one looks scary, but really has a great personality...

We ran into a couple that look oddly like some friends of ours, but our friend doesn't have red skin, so it couldn't be her.

We got to see Princess Leia, Darth Vader with a young Vader in training, and possibly the cutest storm trooper I've ever seen. The helmet that's almost the size of the rest of him, the armor that's rolled up at the ankles, oh, and whenever he lifted the helmet the huge eyes and excited grin... these kids... ahem... these highly trained warriors were too fun!

We also wanted to try to connect with Mr. Vader because we figure he's probably just really misunderstood. He still wants to take over the universe, but we made some progress. I think he's reaching out...

*D*

Calling All Combines!

Last weekend I experienced a first that I just had to tell... well, anybody who will listen about. It was my first ever combine demolition derby! I've been to regular demo derbies for cars, but never with these Monstrous Machines! I'm such a sucker for these quirky home town events and I sure wasn't disappointed.

Little Lind, Washington grew from about 500 people to a couple thousand last Saturday. The event started out fairly unorganized, but it really just added to the humor of the situation. A man who sounded just like Larry the Cable Guy (and I am not exaggerating and I don't think he was either) began the announcing. First they gave out prizes for the best decor (thanks to David for a bunch of these great photos!):

Some of the best names were Prison Break, Tater Salad, Stacks and Cracks, and The Flusher.

Here is Prison Break showing off a little:

Finally they started the actually Demolition Derby:

It didn't have the speed and action that the cars do, but it is crazy to see such huge machines just ram into each other. Occasionally we would hear a loud *POP* which meant one of the huge front tires had popped like a balloon.


After the first round of heats, the combines headed back to be fixed for the final heat (by fixed I mean basically completely rebuilt). At this point they had grain truck and regular farm truck races:

Then they had more grain truck and farm truck races. Then they had still more grain truck races. At this point in the day everybody had something stuck in their eye, a layer of dust covering every exposed area of skin and families with small children were leaving in droves. There was one heart stopping moment when one of the trucks rolled over and another literally drove right on top of it. Not all the trucks had roll bars, but I'm pretty sure this driver is alive because he did:

Finally, hours after the event started, the final heat came. By the end there were only a few combines limping toward each other trying to do any damage possible, one with only one wheel for quite some time. A local boy won, which I'm sure was well deserving. The combine, Free Beer Tomorrow, is in the front of this photo looking pretty much like a crumpled up beer can itself by the final round:

After Larry the Announcer Guy thanked us for coming we went home sweaty, sunburned and dusty, a sure sign of a great day.

~Deanna~