Ohio Fairs

While we were in Ohio, we visited a couple fairs with Brian's parents, and Dave and Crystal. The first one we went to was the Dublin Irish Fest. Dublin is like a suburb of Columbus. They had several musical acts and traditional Irish performances, like this one of bagpipers.


Dave and Crystal:

One of the activities we watched was a herding display. A couple dogs herded some sheep. They were trained to respond to whistles.

Much to our amusement, the dogs also herded some ducks!

Overall, the Irish Fest was very fun.

We also went to the Ohio State Fair, which is held in Columbus every year. One big attraction here is the fair food (L to R: Crystal, Dave, Brian, Brian's mom).

Since it is a state fair, celebrating agriculture, I thought that Brian should have his picture taken with a tractor. He obliged, begrudgingly.

There were also extensive displays indoors, where a little bit of everything was for sale and many products were being demonstrated. They even had whirlpools for sale.

One of the most popular things to see at this fair is the butter sculpture, provided by Ohio's dairy farmers. This year, there was a cow, a calf (shown below), and a Mt. Rushmore-type display with all of the US presidents who were born in Ohio. Brian and I thought that the calf was the nicest part of the display.

There are many carnival rides and games at the fair. Dave and Brian challenged each other at Water Wars, which is a game where you use a giant slingshot to throw water balloons at each other. Both of them got a little wet, but they were smiling.

What do you think I am preparing to see?

The pig races, of course! We watched three groups of pigs race around a small track. The two groups were quite fast, but the last group got a little distracted (see the last picture).