{"id":876,"date":"2010-08-01T13:54:08","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T20:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=876"},"modified":"2010-08-01T13:54:08","modified_gmt":"2010-08-01T20:54:08","slug":"fairs-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2010\/08\/01\/fairs-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonoma County & Other Local Fairs 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who doesn’t love a fair?\u00a0 Even if you don’t have a child to share it with.\u00a0 I grew up on the Del Mar (San Diego County) Fair<\/a>, which is one of the biggest county fairs around.\u00a0 Our local fairs here aren’t as big but they’re fun.<\/p>\n

There’s one right here in Petaluma, the Sonoma-Marin Fair<\/a>, which, despite the name, is pretty darned small.\u00a0 They are home to the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest (a fabulous event, drawing folks from around the country, that brings love and attention to dogs that might otherwise be unadoptable). They also have no nonsmoking policy.\u00a0 I normally skip it but this year some friends had free tickets, so we went.\u00a0 I had to use my respirator when outdoors, except in the kiddie carnival section (which consisted of about half a dozen rides) and it was insanely hot that day.\u00a0 So I checked out the (air conditioned) exhibits then went home after an hour.\u00a0 Michael and Miriam stayed another hour then I came to pick them up.<\/p>\n

Sonoma-Marin Fair<\/a><\/strong>
\nPetaluma, Calif
\n5 days in late June
\nAt least 6 acres
\nAdults (13+) $15, Kids (4-12) $10, Kids 0-3 free, Seniors (65+) $8. Admission includes rides
\nParking free but tight<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I also enjoy the Marin County Fair<\/a>, which is a bit bigger with lots of exhibits, booths, and shows.\u00a0 Plus fireworks every night over a lagoon.\u00a0 Smoking is only allowed in a few well-marked smoking tents (that smoke does not easily escape from), though there are always a few who think the rules don’t apply to them. The Marin Fair doesn’t use pesticides and tries to use less toxic cleaning and other products, well as green projects<\/a> to save energy.<\/p>\n

Marin County Fair<\/a><\/strong>
\nSan Rafael, Calif
\n5 days in early July (always includes the 4th)
\n28 carnival rides, at least 6 acres (for carnival)
\nAdults (13+) $15, Kids (4-12) $13, Kids 0-3 free, Seniors (65+) & disabled $13. Admission includes rides (extra charge for 3 rides)
\nParking $6, very crowded (can take a long time to get in or out), & often a hike<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the fair I consider local is the Sonoma County Fair<\/a>. A good number of booths, huge livestock\/animal section, the “largest themed flower show in the United States,” and horse racing.\u00a0 This fair suffers from a confused (and unmotivated) smoking policy.\u00a0 Two days, kids days, are entirely nonsmoking until 7pm, with so-so enforcement and signage (though it was much better this year, possibly because I spoke with the staff about it ahead of time and they promised to do better).\u00a0 The other days smoking is allowed everywhere except for a spot here, a spot there, and so on (with poor signage).\u00a0 They seem to believe that only children need to avoid cigarette smoke (nearly all the outdoors nonsmoking areas are the kids’ areas and their signs ask people to protect children’s health) and that smoke does not travel (or that people don’t ever travel from one “safe” spot to another).\u00a0 My hope is that I can convince them to follow Marin’s example and set up comfortable and convenient, but contained, smoking areas and make the rest smoke free.<\/p>\n

Sonoma County Fair<\/a><\/strong>
\nSanta Rosa, Calif
\n13 days in late July, early August
\nEntire complex 200 acres; carnival 5 acres plus large separate kiddie carnival
\nAdults (13+) $9, Kids (7-12) $3, Kids 0-6 free, Special free days for kids or seniors.\u00a0 A couple events and big name concerts are extra.\u00a0 Rides are not included with admission.\u00a0 Pay $3-5\/ride or get a wristband for unlimited rides for $25 ($15 if purchased in advance)
\nParking $6-8<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Miriam's<\/a>

Miriam's first real ferris wheel was at the Marin Fair last month, but this one in Sonoma was far bigger<\/p><\/div>\n

Last year was the first time I’d ever entered a Fair contest.\u00a0 Miriam entered 3 photographs and won 2 ribbons.\u00a0 I won 3rd place for my blog (out of 5 entries) and nothing for my date nut bars.<\/p>\n

This year, only I entered.\u00a0 How thrilled was I to enter the exhibit hall and see this:<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I won 2nd place for my dried apricots!<\/p><\/div>\n

Until I went looking around for my competition and discovered this was it.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>

All entries for dried food<\/p><\/div>\n

Yep that’s right.\u00a0 There were 4 entries for dried meat and only one for produce.\u00a0 Apricots were their own class (so were apples and pears).\u00a0 I asked the staff why, if I was the only one, I didn’t get first place.\u00a0 Apparently, it’s not just about the order you fall in but about meeting certain standards.\u00a0 If you look at the meats though, you’ll see that only one of them won a prize, despite there being 5 ribbons available for each class.\u00a0 So my fruit might not have been top notch (probably because I cut them before drying; they’re delicious but not the flattened globes most people are used to) but it was prize-worthy.<\/p>\n

I fared much better with my other entry.\u00a0 There were at least a dozen poems in my class, free verse, and I won 3rd place.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My poem, Suddenly Fall, wins 3rd place!<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the poem, Suddenly Fall, I wrote after William’s death.\u00a0 You can read the text more easily on its blog page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I discovered this year that the Marin Fair, with huge numbers of contest entries, allows entries from neighboring counties.\u00a0 And I might do the Sonoma Harvest Fair this fall.\u00a0 For the Sonoma County Fair, fine arts (especially painting\/drawing and photography) are well populated, but food contests are mixed.<\/p>\n

As for the rest of the Fair, we had a swinging good time for 4 hours, until we went into the Pavilion to check out the business booths and Miriam suddenly started crying to go home.\u00a0 She has been extra sensitive to foods and chemicals lately so who knows.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we never did get to see the animals this year, see the flower show, go to most booths, play any games, or finish with our rides.\u00a0 Ah well.\u00a0 We’ll be back next year.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam<\/a>

Miriam & Cyndi on the Fair swings<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who doesn’t love a fair?\u00a0 Even if you don’t have a child to share it with.\u00a0 I grew up on the Del Mar (San Diego County) Fair, which is one of the biggest county fairs around.\u00a0 Our local fairs here aren’t as big but they’re fun. There’s one right here in Petaluma, the Sonoma-Marin Fair, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[127,24,26,128,99,126,125],"tags":[51,77,78,57,59],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fairs","category-family","category-food","category-food-contests","category-places-to-go","category-poetry","category-writings","tag-photos-family","tag-photos-food","tag-photos-misc","tag-santa-rosa","tag-sonoma-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}