North Port Florida

Now in North Port, Florida

We are now in Del Rio Texas

We are now in Del Rio Texas

State Fair of Texas and Projects

October 17 - 18, 2013    

It’s another State Fair and the weather is really great for it today!  Temperatures are at 69 -72 and bright sun, perfect!  
The fair is held at the site of the Cotton Bowl on the north east side of Dallas.  

We arrived at 11 am and paid a hefty $15 just to park.  The entrance fee was $17 each but we could have gotten in for free.  It was senior day (60+) at the fair and they were handing out a free ticket coupon to almost everybody. We didn't know at that time the coupon was for a free entrance, we thought it was for a discount and our age would be checked. At the gate, we were being motioned to go through and at the same time to go to the ticket booth.  Anyway we paid the full price as we were not 60 yet.  We found out later from our friends Garry and Laurie that anybody they gave that coupon to got in for free without any checking of age.  Oh Well!


I had always wanted to go to this fair as they advertised all of the crazy fried foods.  Also, it has to be big, it’s Texas.  In actual fact, they do have tons of fried foods, everything from fried beer to fried thanksgiving dinner.  They also had my favorite, the corn dog.  However, they call it a corny dog here.  

Since it was close to lunch time and the smell of grease was in the air, we decided to get something right away.  Patty got here favorite, a funnel cake and I wanted some catfish.  While Patty sat and slowly ate her funnel cake, I stood in line for the catfish.  After 20 minutes of standing in line, seeing no one getting food, I left.  Next I thought I would get some fresh cut fries, so over to that line I went.  This time, I stood for ever in a line of just 4-5 people.  Everyone was getting chicken wings and they looked good.  So, after 45 minutes I had an order of 5 wings for $6 to eat.  

We were not impressed with the food at all.  The wings absolutely SUCKED!  The sucking part came from the fact that there was no taste and the meat was, well, soft, like it was steam cooked and no taste.  Also, the wings wanted to come back up for the next hour!  Patty’s funnel cake was the smallest she had ever seen.  It was served on a small paper plate, not the large plate like everywhere else.  It was also cooked too long making it crunchy and dark brown.  So much for the food!

Besides all of the normal stuff at a state fair, the Texas fair had a good 20% of the space devoted to a car show.  We got to ogle a new F-450 pick-up truck and several new Corvettes. Very nice!  Chevy also had a test track that you could test drive several vehicles including the big Silverado HD truck and Corvettes.  Real NICE!  However, for some reason they were temporarily closed when we arrived.  We waited around and also came back a few times with no luck.



Big Tex!  He is the mascot of the fair.


The Plastics boat is the one made of old soda bottles.

New Corvette.

The midway is the area under the blue tents.

Downtown Dallas as seen from the ferris wheel.

For us, I think we are through with state fairs.  We have now been to state fairs in New Jersey, Utah, Arizona, and Texas. The worst was Utah and the best by far was Arizona.  Like everything we do, we may change our minds later, but for now I am getting indigestion just thinking about those wings.

Friday the 18th was an off and on again rainy day.  We used the day to take care off of some projects that needed to get done.  Patty got here Passport application returned because she sent the wrong amount to them.  So she got the paperwork together with the correct amount of money and got it off in the mail again.  I spent some time getting the compartment door to the leveler controller somewhat watertight.   I also replaced another marker light on the truck.  

Loads of mexican influence around here.  We needed to pick up some split peas for dinner tonight.  The local market had these pinatas for sale.

I added a gasket around the compartment door and I ground down the lock catch to fit better.  I had previously replaced the compartment door lock last year. The new lock catch was too long and caused the door to bow a bit when locked.  The compartment door is now very tight.  I’m not sure if this will keep water out or even if water is the problem.  We shall see.

My improved leveler compartment door.
The marker light replacement is just a nuisance item.  It seems that the 2008 -10 Ford trucks had a problem with these marker lights where they get brittle with heat from the bulb.  The socket would split and the marker would fall off. This is the second one I have replaced.  The truck has 4 of these so I will most likely be doing this again.  It’s not a hard job, maybe 20 minutes time, but a little costly at $33 a piece. 

After the projects Patty made some really good split pea soup for dinner.  Soup is always good on a rainy cool day!

After dinner we usually walk the park we are in.  This is a pretty big park so we walked 1.5 miles around it.  Note the ducks all in a line going for a swim.

This is one of the biggest Class C RVs we have seen.  It has a Freightliner frontend and is pulling a trailer that it at least 30 feet.

A full moon over our RV last night, Friday.

Tomorrow we are planning to go the JFK museum at Dealey Square in downtown Dallas.  Then on Sunday we are planning on going to the Fort Worth Alliance Air Show.  Should be good as they have Europeans flying American Fighter Jets they purchased from us.  Because of the sequester, American military can’t fly these in a show.

Amazing!

Stay Tuned!

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