Photos: Model Trains, Funnel Cakes, Etc., at the Nebraska State Fair

The model trains are always fun to watch.  The little old-fashioned villages are put together with an amazing amount of detail.  There are tiny flashing signs in the windows, and old-fashioned lamps along the streets.

We took time to look at the photography.  We usually pass it by, because there are so many.  But it was an air conditioned building, after all, and it was hot outside.

We stopped in the Nebraska Game & Parks building to see the aquarium, and then we exited the fair for a while to make a run to Menards, where we purchased new faucets and handles for our bathtub and bathroom sink.  The sink faucet won’t turn completely off, and the bathtub takes a year and a day to fill, as something is wrong with the valves.

That took longer than expected – almost two hours.  Grand Island is a city of over 53,000; but it’s sprawled out so much, it takes half an hour or more to cross it.  Plus, the streets don’t go nicely in a grid; they curve around, winding and retreating, so that if you don’t look out, you make endless circles and never get out of the spiral, quite a lot as if you were wandering in the wilderness.

Thus, we ran out of time to see the old tractors, the campers, the modular home... etc.

When we got back, the first things we did were to pick up my table runner and table topper, and then to collect Ethan’s poster on bee-keeping, along with his ribbons.  He had two first-place blue rosettes, and another first-place ribbon.  He had taken all the pretty pictures on his poster himself; I’m sure that counted in his favor.

Ethan is Teddy and Amy’s oldest; he’s 17.  Teddy and Ethan spent about six hours at the Fair on Friday, handing out information on bee-keeping and talking to any interested passersby.

Then back to the Expo Center we went for the Vintage Sewing Machine wall hanging and the Atlantic Beach Path quilt.  We carried everything back to the Jeep, drove it closer to the gate so we didn’t have so far to walk, and went back in for a funnel cake, with Larry protesting all the way.  He doesn’t protest at the first or second mention of something I want to do (or eat) that he doesn’t particularly want to do (or eat) (never mind what that something is); no, he acts agreeable until the moment of truth, when it’s time to actually do it.

He invariably gripes when I say I want a funnel cake, ever since the time we bought a couple at the fair, late at night; and then he thought we didn’t have time to eat them there before the gates closed – plus, we were nearly full from eating calzones.  So we drove to a nearby state park to eat them.  By then, of course, the cakes had cooled and were soggy and rubbery.  😜  Funnel cakes must, must be eaten almost immediately after they are done.  In addition, they were waaay too big.  I saved a good deal of mine and put it under the broiler the next morning for breakfast, and it was quite good.  Larry ate all of his, hating it more with each soggy bite he took.  

It didn’t help matters any when, a couple of years later, I chose a pumpkin-pie-flavored funnel cake with cream cheese on top.  Larry thought that sounded pretty good, and, as he is oft wont to do, ordered the same thing, even though we’d agreed to choose totally different items and share them.

We discovered that neither of us liked pumpkin-pie-flavored funnel cake with cream cheese on top.  I won’t eat something if I think it’s baaaad.  Larry, however, thinks he must not waste food, and he must clean up his plate.  His opinion of funnel cakes dropped right down to the bottom of the chart that night.

The thing is, you see, I love funnel cake.  Just because I didn’t eat one when it should’ve been eaten, and just because somebody’s idea of ‘special’ flavoring was less than impressive, doesn’t mean there’s anything fundamentally wrong with funnel cake.

I wanted a funnel cake, and I knew right where to get one, too.

But... so much for saying we didn’t want anything sugary.  That thing had heaps and mounds of powdered sugar on it, and when I told the man that I had actually ordered it with strawberry glaze, he took back the plate – and simply poured strawberry glaze right over the top of all that powdered sugar! 

That was too, too much.

Still, I gotta say, it was good.  And at least we learned from previous experience to only order one of those enormous things, and to share it.

Fortunately, this vendor had plain iced tea to go with the funnel cakes.  After all that protesting, Larry ate about 3/5 of the cake, while I only ate about 2/5 of it.  😅

After strolling through the area with all the rides taking pictures and videos, we limped our way back to the Jeep and headed for home.  It’s 67 miles from Fonner Park to our house.