Well, in the midst of being sick for the last 2 weeks, I managed to find the energy to get over the Florida State Fair for it's closing day, and to catch the concert that night. My daughter ended up even sicker than I was, so the wife stayed home with her and it ended up being just my son and I for the day.
Day: Monday, Feb 21, closing day
Weather: perfect! warm but not hot with some light clouds
Crowds: it got packed later on
This was what they called the "fair day" for the local schools, though they call it Presidents Day in most other places. Why it's not a state holiday here, I don't know. Something to wonder about. In any case, one of our favorite bands (the Newsboys) was playing at the fair this evening, so we were looking forward to the day.
Parking was free, and we arrived right after the fair opened at 9am.
The midway didn't open until 10, but we still bought our wristbands for $20/ each and then walked around a bit.
The one thing that I noticed about this "state fair" is the lack of exhibits and displays. There is a nice commercial building, then the agriculture and livestock buildings, but that's it. Not really anyplace for school students, baked goods, and a lot of the things that you associate with a fair. There was one craftsmen fair building that we missed, but poking into it, it looked like what you would see at a Christmas fair. Things for sale, not on display. This was probably my most disappointing part of the fair as I really like looking at all of the things on display, the collections, art and photos, etc.
Much of the rest of the fair seemed to be a huge overgrowth of the carny food trailers, mixed in with an occasional vendor. While there was a variety, I did notice a few things missing- any Mexican, ribs, sub
sandwiches, and most anything BBQ were either non-existent or just very hard to find. Even a lot of the deep fried foods (oreos, twinkies, CHOST, etc) wasn't easy to find when we were able to. Just seemed odd as to how much was missing there compared to what I'm used to in CA- even for our dinky Ventura County Fair.
But where it makes up for it is in the midway. It's huge, and with a great variety. They run an independent midway here, which means they have several offerings from several different carnival companies, including Wade Shows, Bluegrass, and several others. There is also a giant sling shot and several good shows scattered around in it, including a live bear show, a genuine one ring circus in a tent, a sea lion show, an outdoor daredevil show, and many of the old fashioned side shows (some of which I took pictures of) In that regard it has quite a variety.
So that is where Joseph and I spent most of our time, is on the midway. Some of the rides that we took in, along with some notes, included:
Wild Claw- a four arm version of the KMG afterburner/ Freak Out. My son after a few other rides actually got the courage to go on this, and we loved it. It felt a bit more intense than Knott's version of it, and was a lot of fun. They also had a Freak Out there swinging over the crowd. Kind of funny to see two virtually identical rides at the same fair.
Catch'N Air- similar to a modern Kangaroo. A fun little ride that they ran both forwards and backwards. A bit jarring on the backwards run, and it didn't really jump or catch to much air, but a fun ride none-the-less. Only downside here was seeing the ops get into an argument while we were riding.
Twister- this is the KT enterprises version. They had a larger ride very similar called the Tornado, but it had a 60" height requirement !! I've never seen one that high, but since Joseph couldn't ride on it, we went on the slightly smaller one which was a ton of fun. It could certainly get you dizzy, and we spun quite a bit with me on one end and Joseph being the only other person in our four-seat car.
Orbiter- after riding Sandstorm at BGT, Joseph got to see what one of these things can really do, as they were running it full out. Great Stuff.
Drop Tower (forgot the name and didn't get a good picture of it) - this one pulls you both up, pauses, then drops you quickly. I say pull because it uses a cable system to propel you in both directions. Quite fun. Joseph also liked it a lot, which bodes good things.
Avalanche- I couldn't find the standard name for this one on Adam's site, but it's one of those similar to the Rainbow, but instead of one long arm it's two much shorter ones and you spin pretty quickly. Again a great ride.
We also had a lot of fun in several of the fun houses, took a nice ride on the sky ride, had a wet ride on the flume- which had very dirty, solid brown water (yuck!) and some other things that I'm forgetting. Oh, and also two coasters:
Wild Mouse- spinning mouse by Wade Shows. This was the first time I've ever been on a spinning mouse. It had 2 sets of switchbacks- one on an upper level followed by a couple of drops, where you don't spin at all, then a second set on a lower level where you start spinning, followed again by a few small drops before the ride ends. This is a great, fun ride that had us laughing and giggling all the way through. I want more of these!! Certainly a bit hit with us.
Roller Coaster- similar to a Galaxi owned by Holiday Shows. There was no name on this coaster, and I had to ask the operator who owned it. Apparently it's a very small company, as she actually gave me the name of the owner before the company name, but I didn't write it down. Similar to a Galaxi, but with a different layout, it's certainly an older coaster, but one that runs fast and was fairly smooth. A bit of bumping, but nothing that wasn't fun. A couple of small pops of air, a couple of nice long helixes (one pretty fast) and a neat little "S" turn at the end made this a fun ride. Anyone able to identify what kind of coaster it really is and tell me more about it?
We were pretty much done riding by about 2 since the crowds just became huge (as you can see if you look at my pictures) But it was a fun day and capped off by a fantastic concert that night. Well worth the day out overall.
If you want to see my pictures of the fair, you'll find them in my smugmug album:
http://sirwillow.smugmug.com/gallery/409974/1/16379625
They're not great shots, but hopefully you'll enjoy them. OH, and Adam, feel free to use any that might actually work for you. There are several rides I took pictures of that we didn't ride.
Thanks for reading.
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