The State Fair has begun

It is officially fall! Well, at least it's fall fair time in the capital city of NC. The weather is cooperating as well, seeing that it was in the 50s this morning (chilly!), the air is dry & cool and the sky is the most beautiful blue (at least when the fog burns off). Yay for fall! The leaves are still fairly green, no real signs of the change (except the dogwoods and poplars who couldn't take the heat and drought of the last 2 months).

Paul and I are planning on going to the Fair early tomorrow morning for 1/2 the day. We're only interested in the animals, exhibits and maybe some food. Oh, and of course, the people watching! If we don't go tomorrow, we won't be going at seeing that he leaves for AUS on Sunday until the end of the month...

Apparently, a lot of the rides aren't ready anyway (good thing we haven't had any interest in riding the past few years...). The new show company hasn't operated in NC before and didn't realize that we actually care how safe the rides should be. Ok, well, I'm sure they care about safety, but not attention to detail. Each ride must be in 100% compliance -- if just one seat on a ride doesn't work, the whole ride is closed until everything passes inspection.

From the N&O: "As of 7:30 a.m., a little more than half of the rides -- 61 of 111 -- had met state labor safety standards, said Heather Crews, spokeswoman for the Department of Labor. Inspectors hoped to approve another half dozen by the time the midway opens at 10 a.m. today, Crews said.

She said the labor department didn't know how long it would take to certify all the rides. "We're going to be out there working all day," she said. "We'll be working as long as it takes." Inspectors had found rides with cracks, electrical problems and missing hardware."



Local BLOGS on the NC State Fair:
WRAL and The News and Observer