Friday, September 5, 2008

A Little More on the County Fair

(This was originally posted on Cybereconomics.blogspot.com on July 19, 2008.)

The county fair is over, but after my first visit, I went back a couple times and took a few more pictures. Here are two former students of mine, Sarah and James, getting ready for one of the rides. They told me that I should join them, but I declined.

I declined because the ride began by rocking back and forth like a big swing, until it finally made a complete loop. At the top of the loop the riders were upside down. It would probably have taken me several days to recover if I had gone on this ride. The good old Ferris Wheel was about a much excitement as I could take even when I was young.


I admire the engineering that must go into designing a ride like this. It is a big ride but it has to be put up and taken down every few days and transported on truck. It would have been interesting to see how they assembled it. All the carnival rides were powered by electricity, with a big generator in a truck trailer providing the electricity. The generator was easy to spot because it was belching out quite a bit of diesel exhaust.

I met another former student, Kendra, who told me that her favorite part of the fair was the food. Lots of people ate and listened to the free musical program near the fair office. The musician in the picture below decided not to stay on stage but to mingle with the audience.
On the final day of the fair, those 4-H members who entered animals sell them at an auction. (Finally something that sounds like economics.) But do not go to this auction to get a good deal. The prices are exorbitant. The bidders are mostly local businesses, and their purchases are a way of supporting the 4-H program. So if you want to spent $100 on a chicken, come and bid. Otherwise, stay away.

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