Photos: Vendor's Hall & Greek Gyros at the Nebraska State Fair

I took pictures of all those hundreds of quilts (there were about 450) fast and furiously, and finished at 2:18 p.m.  It’s a huge building, but there are always so many quilts, they have to overlap them.  (See a previous post for quilt pictures.)

We then went to the main hall to see what all the vendors were selling.  People step out to hawk their goods, some quite pushy, all very friendly, of course.  Larry gets hung up time and again, because he’s nicer than me.  I smile – and scurry on without pause, leaving them talking to my back. 

Larry spent $30 on a small bag of Mouse-Mix & Critter-Crumbs – a non-poisonous pest-deterrent product whose main active ingredient is peppermint oil.  If it works... well, then we needed this miracle concoction sooner, rather than later (aka ‘before now’).

More info here:  www.mousemix.us 

I stopped to watch a lady demonstrating waterless cookware.  She had a little pan chockful of corn on the cob, fresh broccoli, cauliflower, etc.  I wanted to watch, along with three older ladies who were sitting in chairs there... but then the demonstrator decided she needed a ‘master chef’.  The other three ladies seemed somewhat infirm, and made no move to rise from their chairs.  She pointed at me, then Larry, asked if he cooks... decided one of us would be her ‘master chef’.  I promptly said, “No, sorry, we have to go!”  Pointing stage left, I then bustled off in the direction I’d just pointed.  One must go where one points.

“Rats!” I said to Larry.  “I wanted to watch her cook that!”

But I did not want to be the star of some show for which I had not rehearsed.

Plus, there were things to do, places to go, things to see.

We found a very nice folding knife display, with the knives at a good price – $15 each – and bought 11 of them, one for each of the sons and sons-in-law, and a couple for the two oldest grandsons, Aaron and Ethan.  I gravitated toward the ones with fancy, elegant handles – gold, or maybe those chrome ones – but Larry picked the ones made to look like airplanes.  I decided he would probably know better than I would what young men would like.  We did wind up with a gold one and an iridescent one with Mother of Pearl in the handle, because the vendor had only nine airplane knives, and we wanted eleven.

Spotting a table full of pretty, handmade soaps, I veered toward it.  It was the Bell Creek Soap table.  I bought two soaps, one in Water Lily fragrance, the other in Pretty Peony.  They look (and feel) like very nice soaps, and are a generous size – but I have not yet ever found soaps to equal those at The Soap Shop in Idaho Springs, Colorado.  The fragrance of every bar of soap, lotion, bath bomb, etc., in that little shop is soooo good.  Every once in a while, I splurge and order half a dozen bars of soap from them.  The prices are similar.  www.bellcreeksoap.com

 We exited the vendors’ section of the Expo Center at 3:40 p.m., half starving half to death, as Bill Collins of The Sugar Creek Gang would’ve said.  And right across the street was the Greek Gyro stand whose food I’d drooled over online.  We trotted straight over there, posthaste.  We stepped right up to the window and ordered – because there are no long lineups for Greek salads and spinach quiches like there are for hotdogs and cheeseburgers and French fries. 

I have always preferred good food that’s good for me.  But we did have a giant-sized Diet Mt. Dew to go with that healthy meal – mainly because they didn’t have any plain iced tea, and we didn’t want anything sugary.  The salad had roasted beef and lamb in it.

We saw a couple of people on stilts, dressed in zebra and cougar costumes, strolling through the crowds. 

“They just have to be drywall workers,” remarked Larry, “to be that good on those stilts.”