A friend of mine had never been to a state fair (gasp!), and I haven't been to one since leaving home at 18, so we bundled up and headed to Hampton, GA (a short 40-minute ride from my home in East Atlanta.)
Take my advice and buy the $20 ride-all-you-want wristband. Even if you only get on 3-4 rides, it's worth it. I made the mistake of buying tickets and then getting the wristband and I didn't get my money's worth of entertainment. Also, some of the rides require two people and my friend couldn't get on any of the rides because they all went in circular motions which make her sick. (Riding alone sucked big time, but I did it because I am awesome.) These rides are some of the same ones from my childhood....and I believe they are literally the same ones because they haven't been updated to accommodate the fattening of America. If you're much bigger than me, you won't be able to fit in a lot of them. I was squeezing in myself. And if you're doing a two-person ride, I hope your partner is skinny.
But the thrill of the ride is still there. Being spun upside down, side-to-side, and far out and away still feels amazing and frightening at the same time. The only ride I would tell anyone to stay away from is Zero Gravity. That's the last ride I got on and the one that made me feel sick to my stomach.
The thing I love most about the fair is that you can eat whatever ridiculous thing you want and not feel guilty about it at all. During my few hours I ate a hand-dipped corn dog, a slice of sausage pizza, half a bag of cotton candy, and a FRIED SNICKERS. Even to me as the person who ate it this sounds gross, but in reality it's tasty, mainly because the breading is similar to what they use for funnel cake. But I only ate the portion of the bar covered in fried cake, the rest I tossed out (had to save room for more junk!) My friend had the fried twinkie and she said it was pretty good - that you could barely taste the filling because of the fried cake. This was good to me because the filling is why I got the fried Snickers instead of the fried twinkie. From what I overheard, fried Oreos are pretty spectacular too.
I got my first airbrush tattoo at the fair! When they apply the paint, it's a little cold on your skin but that's all. The tattoo is supposed to last for two weeks if I don't touch it, but since it was $6 for a small one, I didn't feel too bad when I accidentally scrubbed some of the paint off in the shower. But it was cute the few hours it lasted.
There were a lot of vendors there selling airbrushed items, stuffed animals, hats and scarves, and other random items you could buy at Spencers in 1990. My favorites were the guy selling cowboy hats, and the guys selling leather bracelets. I bought a pair of leather bracelets and my friend bought four jewel and leather bracelets.
There were games to win stuffed animals. I have no faith in those games at all and wish they would just let me buy the friggin' teddy bear. But I played skee ball for old times sake and won absolutely nothing, which I remember from my childhood.
As for fashion, my friend and I were part of the small group who wasn't outfitted in something called "Realtree" which is hunting camouflage. And this wasn't just the fellas, people. The ladies had their Realtree pants and jackets too. As for hair and makeup - blond on top/black on bottom hair (skunk hair) and heavy black eyeliner were definitely the top picks. My friend and I looked so boring and non-local that every booth we stopped by asked us where we were from.
Although I hate to pay for parking, it was a reasonable $5.
My friend had a great time at the fair and was glad she was able to tick that off her "experiences" list, and I was able to re-visit my childhood for just a while and it was lovely. This is definitely a family or teenager kind of thing, but as a couple of grown ups over 35 we had a great time, too.
Yelp 52 #44 read more