Oh, and teeth.
Yesterday Lance and I dropped the girls off at their respective schools and turned our faithful gas guzzling steed south. I had a date with a bespectacled gentleman who wields sharp instruments and loud drills.
I had cracked off half of my temporary crown and needed to have the permanent one put on.
So, we drove.
It was not only my date-with-a-dentist day, but the first day of the Puyallup Fair. To my husband this means only one thing: SCONES!.
We devised a delightful plan as we hurtled south at speeds approaching non-legal limits. We would arrive early enough for us to stop, get into the fair free (First day of the fair is free day before noon), get our hand stamped so we could get back in later after my appointment and buy fair scones. It was a good plan. A yummy plan. A plan that involved food. A plan that made us happy.
Apparently it made about five hundred billion other people happy as well.
The first sign of how our morning was about to go was the four way stop two blocks from our house. A woman in a white pickup truck obviously missed the chapter on How to Take Your Turn at a Four Way Stop when she took driver's ed classes. I say this because she sort of stopped then went, nearly into the drivers side of our suburban. I pointed at her, then pointed at myself and said "I was here first". I think she was on crack. That's a better explanation than the first one I thought of, that she was blind. I say this because she never looked at us. She stared straight ahead and waited while I went around her in the middle of the four way stop.
Our driving adventures only went down hill from there.
As we neared Puyallup, traffic became heavy. And when I say heavy, I mean black-hole-gravitational-pull heavy. I mean it sucked every vehicle within a 100 mile radius in towards the fair grounds. Traffic was stopped on the shoulder of the freeway about half a mile from the actual exit. This caused near accidents involving people coming around the corner, slamming on their brakes and skidding. I'm not exaggerating when I say that global warming took a huge step towards actually becoming something real by all the black smoke poured out from people standing on their brakes in order to not kill the person in front of them. (Someone alert Al Gore!)
We were lucky to get out of that one alive.
Everyone was turning right at the bottom of the exit, so being that we had once lived in Puyallup and knew our way around, we went left.
Up and around the south side of the fair grounds to the western side and to another four way stop.
Where we were stopped by a police man. For twenty minutes. We sat there. Sat. There. Not moving. Lance got out to run to the gate and get his hand stamped. He came back and I went to get my hand stamped. I came back.
Still, we sat.
As we sat there, a cattle drive took place in front of us. Horses with riders. Horse drawn carriages. Horses pulling wagons. See?
There were men sitting down riding tractors. There were white haired gentleman standing up riding green tractors. There were Clysdales. I lost track of how much farm life passed before my eyes before we were finally allowed to go.
We were a bit late for my dental appointment. While we were there, Lance ran to the bank to get some cash for our trip back down the hill to the Fair. I was done in record time (Thanks Dr. Chris!) and we headed back towards the Fair grounds.
With every other person on the planet.
When it became apparent that we would never find parking nearer than Tacoma, we decided that Lance would get out and walk into the fair, buy scones and I would pick him up. It shouldn't take too long, right?
While he was in there standing in line behind fifty people with the same idea. I was able to get us lunch from Taco Time in another county, read War and Peace twice and get a pedicure and a mani.
Finally, after sweating in the sun and standing in line behind people who were ordering twelve dozen Fair Scones at once, he emerged from the Gold Gate of the Fair grounds, where I swooped in to pick him up. And by swooping in, I mean I crawled at a snails pace behind a gazillion vehicles who also had the same idea that we had.
So, I never got to step more than three feet into the Fair and I never got to walk around and see baby pigs in pens and cows being milked. But thanks to the perseverance of my wonderful husband, we did get two bags of Fair Scones.
Yesterday Lance and I dropped the girls off at their respective schools and turned our faithful gas guzzling steed south. I had a date with a bespectacled gentleman who wields sharp instruments and loud drills.
I had cracked off half of my temporary crown and needed to have the permanent one put on.
So, we drove.
It was not only my date-with-a-dentist day, but the first day of the Puyallup Fair. To my husband this means only one thing: SCONES!.
We devised a delightful plan as we hurtled south at speeds approaching non-legal limits. We would arrive early enough for us to stop, get into the fair free (First day of the fair is free day before noon), get our hand stamped so we could get back in later after my appointment and buy fair scones. It was a good plan. A yummy plan. A plan that involved food. A plan that made us happy.
Apparently it made about five hundred billion other people happy as well.
The first sign of how our morning was about to go was the four way stop two blocks from our house. A woman in a white pickup truck obviously missed the chapter on How to Take Your Turn at a Four Way Stop when she took driver's ed classes. I say this because she sort of stopped then went, nearly into the drivers side of our suburban. I pointed at her, then pointed at myself and said "I was here first". I think she was on crack. That's a better explanation than the first one I thought of, that she was blind. I say this because she never looked at us. She stared straight ahead and waited while I went around her in the middle of the four way stop.
Our driving adventures only went down hill from there.
As we neared Puyallup, traffic became heavy. And when I say heavy, I mean black-hole-gravitational-pull heavy. I mean it sucked every vehicle within a 100 mile radius in towards the fair grounds. Traffic was stopped on the shoulder of the freeway about half a mile from the actual exit. This caused near accidents involving people coming around the corner, slamming on their brakes and skidding. I'm not exaggerating when I say that global warming took a huge step towards actually becoming something real by all the black smoke poured out from people standing on their brakes in order to not kill the person in front of them. (Someone alert Al Gore!)
We were lucky to get out of that one alive.
Everyone was turning right at the bottom of the exit, so being that we had once lived in Puyallup and knew our way around, we went left.
Up and around the south side of the fair grounds to the western side and to another four way stop.
Where we were stopped by a police man. For twenty minutes. We sat there. Sat. There. Not moving. Lance got out to run to the gate and get his hand stamped. He came back and I went to get my hand stamped. I came back.
Still, we sat.
As we sat there, a cattle drive took place in front of us. Horses with riders. Horse drawn carriages. Horses pulling wagons. See?
There were men sitting down riding tractors. There were white haired gentleman standing up riding green tractors. There were Clysdales. I lost track of how much farm life passed before my eyes before we were finally allowed to go.
We were a bit late for my dental appointment. While we were there, Lance ran to the bank to get some cash for our trip back down the hill to the Fair. I was done in record time (Thanks Dr. Chris!) and we headed back towards the Fair grounds.
With every other person on the planet.
When it became apparent that we would never find parking nearer than Tacoma, we decided that Lance would get out and walk into the fair, buy scones and I would pick him up. It shouldn't take too long, right?
While he was in there standing in line behind fifty people with the same idea. I was able to get us lunch from Taco Time in another county, read War and Peace twice and get a pedicure and a mani.
Finally, after sweating in the sun and standing in line behind people who were ordering twelve dozen Fair Scones at once, he emerged from the Gold Gate of the Fair grounds, where I swooped in to pick him up. And by swooping in, I mean I crawled at a snails pace behind a gazillion vehicles who also had the same idea that we had.
So, I never got to step more than three feet into the Fair and I never got to walk around and see baby pigs in pens and cows being milked. But thanks to the perseverance of my wonderful husband, we did get two bags of Fair Scones.
I tell ya, state fairs are supposed to be fun, but there's always soooo many people that it's crazy. The county fair is a little better, at least ours was until they started preventing you from parking where it was free...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, scones look good, though not what I always thought scones were...grin.
It was a fun and also slightly irritating way to spend our morning. The scones were wonderful though. I'd do it again for the scones! :)
ReplyDeleteWe still haven't been to the fair. I'm not sure we'll ever go now...
ReplyDeleteThe scones at Chinooks are pretty delicious, and free with your breakfast.
i would do that for waffle fries.
ReplyDelete=)