Muscatine County Fair

Heat Index: 100+ Humidity: 85-90% Sweat Index: 100%

It was a day that began with a shower. A needless one, since as soon as we stepped out the door we were coated in sweat. We forged on through the swampy air, the dusty roads and arrived at the county fair. If you didn’t grow up in a farm county or town or family, you probably don’t quite understand the importance of the county fair. It’s where 4-H kids, yes I was one of those, brought projects they had worked on all year to be judged or animals they had raised to be looked over and appraised. There are rides to ride, greasy, wonderful food to eat, and attractions at the grandstand. A queen is named, dancers perform, and those who want can share their hidden talent for all to appreciate. And there’s the Zipper, a huge, delapidated amusement ride, was where we proved our fearlessness and compared how many times our ‘safe’ little cage flipped us head over heels. It is a spectacle. Growing up in the town where the county fair is held brought its own excitement. New people in town, a buzz surrounding the week, and it's all our little town can handle to try not to completely shut down and spend all our time and money at the fair.

So I took my children to the fair, a place flush with nostalgia. It was Kids’ Day which meant our 4 year old could get an armband and ride as many rides as he wanted for 5 hours, at a low cost of $15 this seemed like the best way to pass the afternoon. And it was worth every cent. He went on the cars, the dragon rollercoaster, the spinning strawberries, the flying elephants, the flying airplanes, and the ferris wheel...twice. We recruited Grandma and Grandpa and went on the rides again and again until at one point late in the afternoon I watched him going around and around on the car ride only to see him dozing off at the wheel. I knew we had hit our limit so I took my exhausted little boy and girl home with a glass of lemonade. We hit the pool, the plastic blowup one that is, in my parents yard to cool off and wash the sweat off once again before crashing in bed.

Thinking I had not suffered enough heat and humidity the day before, I decided it would be fun to go to the fair again the next day to see the animal barns. It felt cooler, really it did, until we got to the fairgrounds and suddenly the temparture rose ten degrees. That’s what happens when you live a long time in a place where there is no air conditioning. When you are in an hot place you forget that inside a house is cooler because of a/c, not because it is actually a cooler day outside. So, dressed in jeans, we trudged and sweated our way to the animal barns. Disappointed by the selection, we moved on to the next building with a fan, where we spent the remainder of the whole hour we were at the fair watching the little guy trying with all his might to pull a huge bale of hay up by a rope and pulley system. He pulled and pulled, then climbed up and hung on the rope with all his weight. Of course, we know it won’t budge, but he kept trying until he finally relented that he, in fact, could not lift it.

You’re probably wondering what our little girl did this whole time. Well, she sat in the stroller and sweated, a lot. She nursed, a lot, to make up for the sweat. And sometime in the middle of all this, she learned to walk. Yep, she has accomplished upright mobility, and she’s so proud of herself as are we.