The Wonders of the Missouri State Fair

The Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Missouri was a pretty big deal for me. As anyone versed in John Milito trivia can tell you, my hometown is Springfield, Illinois, home of the Illinois State Fair. I have been about 30 times and am pretty emotionally invested, so I had a lot riding on this experience. Illinois GDP is about 3 times that of Missouri so it really shouldn't be much of a contest, but still.

Admission was $8, but there was free parking on the grounds. That's a huge step up from Illinois. In Springfield parking space is so valuable that every front yard within blocks of the fairgrounds turns into a temporary 10-dollar-a-spot parking lot.

We walked into a building with stadium seating just to see if anything was happening inside. Boy was it. We had stumbled onto a very strange event. I'm going to call it the Pony Pull but I have no idea. A team of two miniature horses are led around in front of a pallet stacked full of cement blocks. The horses are hooked to the blocks and then unleashed. They both spring forward and pull the bricks while their handler yells hilarious "giddyup" type encouragement words to them. After three tries they are scored and then the tractor pulls the pile of bricks back into place for the next horse. It was so simple but so strange that we sat and watched for several rounds.

In a beer tent two little girls with cat face-paint sang an awesome rendition of Blake Shelton's "Boys 'Round Here". They were so short that they were actually standing on one of the speakers.

Pigs racing for an Oreo.

They had tiger stripe ice cream in honor of Mizzou's silly mascot. Go Illini.

One of the terrible-for-you food highlights that I had read about before we arrived was the red velvet funnel cake. I don't seem to have any pictures of it, likely because I was busy stuffing it in my face and there was powdered sugar everywhere.

They had a butter cow that was pretty cool, but I'm going to have to say not as awesome as the one in Illinois. Well, it was a buttery American Gothic which I appreciated even more since we went to Grant Wood's house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Zoe was tired from all of the excitement and decided to take a little rest.

We entered an exhibition building that was probably called "The Weird Stuff People Make 

When They Have Way Too Much Time On Their Hands Pavilion".

Got things laying around? Got glue? Then you've got crafts, my friend.

A map of Missouri made out of shotgun shells. I wonder if this is topographical too... that would be pretty rad.

Shotgun shell Christmas lights.

Exploring Neosho

In between unpacking boxes we took a few walks around town to see what we could find. Big Spring Park is walking distance from the apartment and happens to be really nice.

The spring just magically flows out of the rock. It's pretty cold water, so it's nice to walk next to on a hot day. It really cools the air down quite a bit. In fact, according to the never erring Wikipedia, "Neosho" is Osage for "clear, cold water". In typical Wikipedia fashion, I got sucked in way father than I anticipated, and learned all about Osage. The last native speaker died in 2005. Bummer dude.

Here's the same view of the little spring from the May 26, 1941 issue of Time that featured quite a lengthy story about Neosho.

We followed the water, and so does the park. It was a lot larger than is initially evident.

I think that Neosho's most famous resident must have been George Washington Carver. He went to grade school in fabulous Neosho. Lucky dog.

There are several vacant storefront on the square. Lydia and I like to imagine what sort of business we would like to open on the square. It's hard to decide my vote, but right now I'm leaning towards pool hall.

There are several outdoor murals around town. There is some sort of a walking tour I believe but we just happened to stumble upon this one.

One of our primary methods of gathering intelligence on awesome things to do is now posters in store windows. That's what we've been reduced to. We are planning on checking out the Missouri State Fair. I think that only then Lydia will truly understand the glory of the Illinois State Fair.