I love the end of June / beginning of July, not because it means my birthday is coming, but because it's time for The Big Butler Fair. It's always over the 4th of July and sometimes is still going on when my birthday rolls around and I get to go then. But this year it will be over before my birthday so we went Tuesday night. The Big Butler Fair, yes that is how everyone refers to it, is your typical, rural, country fair. It has animals, fair food, rides galore, and nightly entertainment. The entertainment ranges from Demolition Derby, to Truck Pulls, to an all day Country music concert on the last Saturday. I used to live only a few miles from the fairgrounds which is when I started going every year. Even after I moved farther away, I would always go back. This year was extra fun as we took Lillian for the first time. After she acclimated to the environment, she had a good time. The one disappointment was that they did not show rabbits this year. There were a couple in the petting farm area though. Another annual favorite is watching the peep incubator. Every day there are peeps being hatched.
Of course, after seeing all the animals, we had to get some fair food. But what to have, there are so many choices. Of course, you have to have several things since the fair comes but once a year. We had pizza, gyros, cheese steak subs, corn dogs, pierogies, and ribbon fries. We've found the pizza and gyros from "John the Greek" to be the best. Not all at once, mind you. And of course you can't leave without having some fried dough. That's a total fair experience.
We don't ride the rides. Just watching some of the rides makes me queasy. If we rode the rides I wouldn't be able to eat all that food. Of course I know that someday I will be riding those rides with the little one, but the kiddie rides looked doable.
There are also exhibits throughout the fairgrounds. The Butler County Tourism office had a tent with various exhibits about what there is to do in Butler County. There was even a table from a local winery providing wine tastings (4 for $1). Since we enjoy visiting local wineries we stopped and sampled. We didn't purchase any but we will go back to the actual winery sometime to pick some up and sample some more.
It was such a fun time and a beautiful night as well, I didn't want it to end. It was the first night in a while that it wasn't raining. Perfect temperature, no humidity, you couldn't ask for more. Here are some photos from the evening.
