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Yes, friends, it was time again for our annual trip to the Kentucky State Fair.  Not much changes from year to year, but CVH still loves the State Fair.

We got up this morning, and I asked CVH if she was going to cook some breakfast to fortify us for our journey.

“I have to cook?” she replied.  “We’re going to get corn dogs at the fair!”  She was referring, of course, to the wonderful fresh hand-dipped corn dogs at the Kentucky Corn Growers booth (see every entry on our State Fair trips from 2007 to date).

“Well,” I said, “it might be a while before they start frying.”  So she went ahead and cooked up a delicious omelet for us.

Then it was off to the fairgrounds under ominous skies.  Sure enough, just as we arrived, the heavens opened up and it started pouring rain.  Almost all of the fair is indoors, however, and we had arrived early enough that it wasn’t that far a run from our car to the building where the poultry were being shown.  Man, that was a noisy display!  All those screaming chickens, and even this quacking duck:

We could only handle so much of that noise before going to the nice, quiet rabbit area.  Where we looked at the rabbits.  “Every damn rabbit”, in fact, according to CVH.  But they are so irresistably cute!  Here are just a few:

And here am I with one of the “Best in Breed” (the rabbit, that is; not me):

Immediately outside of the rabbit area was the Kentucky Corn Growers stall, and CVH was ready for her corn dog, so we ran out to their tent.

OMG! No corn dogs! CVH was so disappointed. Something she looks forward to all year, and they pull the rug out from under her. We looked at the other organizations, the fish, pork, beef, and dairy people, but nothing would take away the sting for her. So we ran back into the barn and looked at more animals.

Eventually we got around to the honey exhibit, where I got my picture taken as a honeybee:

CVH admired the competition cakes:

Yummy!

OK, so it’s not Burning Man, but we do get a kick out of the fair each year.

It’s always amazing to me how Louisville takes a two minute horse race and stretches it out into a week, sometimes two, of partying.  Yes, Indianapolis extends the 500 for an entire month, but you can see the contenders at the track most any day during that period.  Perhaps this is a Midwestern thing.

The festivities really start getting cranked up on the Thursday before Derby, known as Thurby in these parts.  This has become the “locals day”, when hoi polloi can to to the track and take in some of the racing excitement and atmosphere without the crowds and expense of the big days.  Friday is Oaks; they close the schools.  Saturday is Derby, basically an official holiday in Louisville (we went to the library yesterday and there was a sign posted that it would be closed Saturday “for the holiday”).

CVH went to Thurby this year; it was her first visit inside of the Downs.  She got to see Millionaire’s Row, the huge new JumboTron (the largest in the world – or western hemisphere – or something), and the horses galloping down the track right in front of her.  She got a big kick out of it and wants to go back next year.

There’s a highly regarded Indian restaurant in our neighborhood, Dak Shin, and we headed there after the library.  It is said that if you know your way around South Indian food, you can order anything and the chef will make it for you.  However, we were starving so we opted for the lunch buffet.

The only thing that I sometimes find annoying about Dak Shin is the constant, and rather loud, use of televisions in their dining area.  If you simply cannot stand Indian music videos or Bollywood musicals, this is not the place for you.  However, they had something different on today that we hadn’t seen before – sports.  No, not horse racing, but cricket.  As we entered the buffet line, the score was announced as fifty-nine to one.  “Fifty-nine to one,” I repeated aloud.  “I don’t know anything about cricket, but that can’t be good.”  The woman next to me chuckled.  By the time we left, the score was one hundred and fifteen to three.  Yes, that’s 115 to 3.  The amazing thing was that the stadium was still packed with thousands of spectators and they were still cheering.  There must be something about scoring cricket that I just don’t know.

The Shen Yun dancers came to Louisville this weekend, and we attended the matinee show this afternoon.  While at a home show a couple of months ago, we were approached by some Shen Yun volunteers selling tickets.  They had the best available tickets right there in their hands.  “Such a deal”, I thought, because the tickets are not cheap, and this way we got the best possible seats.

The program consisted of a number of very short pieces, each containing a large number of dancers.  The format was referred to as “classical Chinese dance”, although I think most of us Westerners would call it folk dancing.  They do not go en pointe.  The orchestra, though small, was excellent.

The Masters of Ceremonies point out that for followers of Falun Dafa performing these dances is prohibited in China, and a couple of the dances demonstrated this oppression.

During intermission, while his wife was off at the restroom, a man behind me was asking his seat neighbors for news on the University of Kentucky basketball game this afternoon.  “I’m guessing this performance was not your idea,” one of them said, and he replied “No, today is my forty-fifth wedding anniversary, so I couldn’t get out of this, but I didn’t know when I bought the tickets that UK would be playing this afternoon.”

My favorite piece was “Ladies of the Tang Palace”, which featured dancers attired like the one in the picture above.  There was a selection from “Journey to the West”, featuring the Monkey King, Sand Monk, Pigsy, a Toad Monster, the Goddess of the Moon, and the Jade Rabbit pounding with its mortar and pestle.  (The Jade Rabbit, shown at right, was also the name of the recent Chinese lunar rover).