To Fair Park & Back

Originally I planned on having a post yesterday recapping my weekend & then today was going to be a post dedicated to my day at the Texas State Fair.  However, Sunday night I got lazy & didn't want to do a weekending post.  Why?  Well because Friday was spent at a volleyball game like always (we won) & Sunday was spent relaxing & watching football (Vikings won).  So that pretty much left what I did Saturday which was going to be it's very own post anyway.

This isn't going to be a Texas State Fair dedicated post either though.  Why?  Because I did not do the fair at blogger level ha.  Plus, half the day/night was spent doing shenanigans around Dallas & that cannot be left out!

Around 12:30 in the afternoon I left my apartment to go pick up a friend so we could head to the fair.  The day we decided to go also happened to be the Red River Rivalry game (OU v UT).  Because of this we ultimately decided that riding the Dart to the game was going to be easier than trying to find any parking down there.  That decision is what would make our day exactly what it was.

We got to the train station, had to quickly buy a ticket & sprint onto the train in Arlington.  From there we started trying to figure out where we needed to get off & what train we would need to get on next in order to get off right at Fair Park.  Didn't matter.  We got dropped off at our necessary location but the trains to Fair Park weren't going to be running until after the game had started.  So, we hopped on some buses.

We eventually got to the fair, stood in line, bought some tickets, & then went in search for some food.  This is where I let myself down.  I didn't eat near enough fair food as I should have.  And the couple of things I did eat, I somehow deleted the pictures off my phone.  #BloggerFail  We did drink some beers though!

My first stop was BaconNation.  I got the deep fried mozzarella sticks wrapped in bacon.  So good.  They also automatically came with this amazing ranch.  It was gone before my friend could even decide what he wanted to eat.  Twister potatoes with that insanely awesome cheap nacho cheese on top.  So while he ate those we went on a mission to find a beer garden.  We found one, each got a beer.  I wound up with just a Revolver Blood & Honey because the one I wanted to try was out & since I was at the front of the line I felt too much pressure to decide on something else.  He got a Texas Ale Project Payne Pils.  We stopped at another beer garden & then the Texas Ice House but because it was game day they were all packed full of people.  We wound up at Trio on the Green where we shared a flight of Karbach Love Street, Legal Draft Strawberry Wheatness, & a Nine Band Badge Honey Blonde.  We then each went back for our own full size Strawberry Wheatness.  We also shared a giant pickle because while walking out we had 4 tickets left & as fate would have it, that's how much a pickle was...

I go to fairs for 2 things.  Food & animals.  So our next stop was animals.

GIVE ME ALL THE ANIMALS!  Ok, give me all the cows...

Of the 6 Octobers I've lived in Texas I've gone to the fair 4 of them.  This year though was the first year I ever rode the Texas Star (the giant Ferris Wheel).  My friend told me it was a must & I do love a good Ferris Wheel...

I of course also had to get a picture of Big Tex.  Fun (or sad) fact.  The very first year I went, I drove up from Houston to go & the night before my friends & I went was when Big Tex burned down.

Moving on.  After spending a ton of money, & getting tired of fighting the sea of burnt orange & red, we decided to take our shenanigans elsewhere.  And this my friends is where the real adventure began.

We tried to get on the train towards Lower Greenville.  They were only letting people on the train in one direction...the opposite one.  We were told we'd have to get on that way & then get on a different one elsewhere to get where we were actually headed.  We wound up getting off God knows where & getting on a train that seemed to be heading in the right direction (as in the opposite way we had just been going aka the direction we wanted to go) & yet we somehow wound up in South Dallas.  My bad.  At least that ride was extremely entertaining.  We get off, get on yet another train finally in the right direction & get off at our "destination."  The train station was still a mile walk from where we were headed.  So we obviously stopped at a Taco Bell for waters, a pre-dinner taco, & to use the bathroom.

When we finally reached Lower Greenville we hopped in & out of bars & restaurants all night.  We of course got popsicles from Steel City Pops, we each got a beer at Snuffers & The Dubliner, tried to get pizza at Greenville Ave Pizza Co but didn't want to wait an hour, & finally ate real food at Charlie's Creole Kitchen.  Our night did not magically end there.  No, we then walked the mile back to the train station where we tried to stop at Taco Bell again.  This time so I could go to the bathroom & he could get a quesadilla.  They were closed.  We made it to the train station.  Waited a solid 45 min.  No train.  Another person had been waiting over an hour.  There were signs saying there would be delays because of mechanical issues but no time frames & no numbers to call.  At this point I was getting crabby as all get out.  I was tired, I didn't want to wait all night for a train that may never come, so finally I marched off & called an Uber.  $32 & an hour & a half later we were back in Arlington.  20 min after that I was finally home.

But hey like my dad always used to say to me when I was younger & things didn't go as planned "Memories"

Next time though I'm driving myself...