In which we go to the fair, bite a new friend and lose the boy on the fairway...

*This is an inordinately long post with no pictures.  Pour a cold drink, kick off your shoes and prepare to yawn.....

That pretty much sums up the highlights of our trip to the Lewistown Fair. 

It seemed like SUCH a good idea, at the time. 
Growing up, my family (Mom's side) went to the Lewistown Fair every year and it was the best time! Riding rides with the cousins, eating cotton candy, collapsing in the shade and starting all over.  Our parents would go to the rodeo and when we were little, we went too.  As we got into those "cool" teen years, we declined the rodeo and went on the rides and giggled about the cute boys/girls. (Just to clarify, I was NEVER cool.  But I was in that age group.)

My Aunt Arlene and Uncle Dick and their kids/grandkids/grandkids' friends still go every year and I wanted to take my kids so they could have that great time with thier cousins!

We were a day early, to start with.  The cousins didn't truly hit town until Saturday morning, when we were leaving. Ah, well, next year....

And the Farmer had to stay home, so I was playing zone defense instead of man-to-man.

It was HOT...incredibly hot for Lewistown, a little mountain town that usually has temps of around 78-80 degrees during the day.  We had Pay-One-Price tickets that let us ride all day, so we were determined to ride that afternoon AND that night.  Nearly got heatstroke, going from sticky ride to sticky ride...

We went to our friends' house for supper and that was a treat! Mike and Lisa Waterman graciously invited us to have fajitas and let the kids jump on the trampoline with the sprinkler. (This is where it starts getting interesting....)

They have three kids; Laura (10 yrs), Daniel (8 yrs) and Meredith (3 months).  Laura was away at camp, so Maggie and Angus converged on Daniel, his toys and the trampoline.  Bless his heart, he was very nice (or scared) and let them play with everything.  The trampoline was a big hit....so much so, that Maggie gave him a big kiss. (Maybe two. Who knows? We only witnessed the one.)

After supper, the kids were playing on the tramp again, this time without the sprinkler, and we were inside doing dishes and visiting, when Daniel came in and announced with a trembling lip that Maggie had bit him.

I went out and of course she got a big spanking, had to apologize and then go sit in the car. Alone. Forever.  (I was ready to leave her there forever, let me tell you...) We decided it was perhaps time to load up both families and go to the fair to ride more rides, since it had cooled off.

And that was a good time! Even when a cloud burst came through; we waited it out and went back for more. Until the kids decided to go through the fun house over and over and over and over....
Lisa said she'd watch them make the rounds if Mike and I wanted to go on the Zipper.

*A note here, about the Zipper.  It was the Big Ride, when I was a kid.  The ultimate, scary, test-your-tummy, double-dog-dare-ya ride at the fair.  You had officially become one of the big kids, when you could ride the Zipper. Bonus points if you could ride it back-to-back. I hadn't ridden on the Zipper since I was 18, and I desperately wanted to know if I was still one of the big kids.

So there we were, two old fogies, standing in line with all the big kids, waiting to get on the Zipper and chatting, when I saw Lisa Waterman coming toward us, Maggie crying, making questioning gestures and saying, "Did Angus come over here? We can't find him."

Is this every mother's nightmare? Well, it's certainly mine.  The fairway was FILLED with people and not all of them looked like good old country people from Grass Range who came to show their steers and eat a little corn.

We scoured that place. Mike and Lisa's friends looked.  The carnival people looked.  And finally the security people found him on the carousel, not 10 steps from the fun house.  I had looked there several times and I know Mike and Lisa had, too.  He was lost for about 30 minutes, but it seemed like longer, and I'm a couple years older, now.

Anyway, we were all frazzled, but the older kids went on a couple more rides and then we said goodbye to our friends and headed to the motel.

Saturday morning, we went to McDonalds for breakfast...a big treat for us....and met Sue Fitzgerald's cousin's wife from North Carolina.  I'm not kidding.  No matter where you are from or who you are, we Montanans will find a connection with you.  Try it sometime.  You'll be shocked.

Then we went to the park, where Maggie took up with a little Hutterite girl who is now her new best friend, I guess.  The farmer's market was being held there and the Hutterites sell lots of really good produce.

AND (this is big) I got a text message. Yeah, I did. From my cousin Beth. (Really, I think she was trying to be mean, because she knows how technologically inept I am...) But get this: I actually worked around and successfully sent one BACK! You have no idea what a big thing this is in my world.  Well, some of you do.  If you've been reading the Chronicles for a while, you'll remember the time I texted myself.

Then, because I was exhausted and the kids were crabby and it was hinted at that we might be pulling bulls that afternoon, we drove home.

Next year, I'm putting a muzzle on Maggie, a homing device on Angus and coordinating my schedule a little better with the cousins.  But it was a fun trip, really, and our last big hoo-rah before harvest.