Olympic Fever and State Fair Fun

If you had to pick a time of the year when I have no idea how I'm going to fit everything into my day this would be the time. I would say that I enjoy watching the Olympics but that would be understating it, a lot. I am an Olympics junkie. I watch everything I can get my hands on. I'm particularly fond of the non-mainstream sports like rowing, fencing, archery, and a couple mainstream ones like swimming and diving. I don't really care much for gymnastics (yes I know blasphemy in Shawn Johnson country) and I enjoy track and field but normally in smaller doses. But I'll watch every single minute of it (even the gymnastics) except for work time.

And fair time. I have been going to the Iowa State Fair since I was a small child. I don't remember ever skipping a year. It is just too much fun and way too tasty. While there are no corndogs in my future. Unlike 10,000 fans at 8:30 in the morning. http://www.kcci.com/entertainment/17119168/detail.html. But there will be fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies (straight out of the oven), roasted corn, pork chops on a stick, and funnel cake. Yeah for one time of the year I'm a big carnivore. Plus there is the chance to see the butter cow, the award-winning photography, hundreds of animals, horseshoe pitching contests, and the biggest draw, people watching.

There are some strange people that come to the fair. Jeff and I regularly wander around the fair looking for the worst fair shoes (most inappropriate for walking), worst mullet, heaviest person, biggest belt buckle, and many other games. Contrast that with my other passion, the Olympics. Here are people in their prime. They are all muscle, toned and athletic. They represent the best of the best. As much as I hate to admit it, the fair tends to bring out the opposite. While most people here in Iowa are wonderfully nice, there are some people out here that are just a couple fries short of a happy meal. And most of them congregate at the fair. Plus there is the growing (both literally and figuratively) population that use motorized scooters through the fair. I thought strollers were bad enough. It is quite a contrast.

So these next two weeks will be manic. I'll jump from amazing athletes who are the best in the world to scarfing down fair food with some of the heaviest people I've ever seen. Perhaps having the Olympics running at the same time will help me watch what I eat at the fair. Then again, did I mention fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.