Dixie Classic Fair

Yesterday was our day to finish around 3:30. I had heard, from one of our residents earlier in the day, that the fair was in town so we thought that would be a fun thing to do last night.


We weren't really sure where the fair was located but finally stumbled upon signs for it and got there just fine.We had such a good time. The Dixie Classic Fair is in its 128th year of operating and it's like the county type fairs that we have up in Pennsylvania. Livestock, displays, music, home-made items that get judged and awarded ribbons and lots of yummy food. Since we hadn't eaten since lunchtime, we thought we'd just eat our way across the fairgrounds. The big difference in southern style fairs and "yankee" fairs is the food made by the local churches and civic organizations. They DO have hamburgers and hotdogs but then you can get pintos and cornbread, collard greens, chitterlings (what the heck are those ?). Linda and I looked high and low for something in the vegetarian realm (nope, collard greens don't fit in that category) and when we didn't find it, we opted for fresh cut fries. Had a big ole plate of them for starters. Then we hit the funnel cake stand. Later we bought 1/2 a pound of mixed fancy nuts.  Part way through our travels we came up on a small booth where everything was made from apples. Apple streudel, apple dumplings, etc. Since we were pretty full, we decided on a apple cinnamon stick, which was very yummy. Everything in that booth looked and smelled awesome and it wasn't your typical fair booth. It was a local person and everything was home-made. After all of this we were really stuffed but we went by this one booth that really caught our eye. The guy was working over a really huge wok and he was stir frying all sorts of fresh veggies and then he added soba noodles to all of it and soy sauce. The flames were shooting into the air and it was quite a show and it smelled wonderful. Well, we had to try it. It was very good...little salty tasting from all of the soy sauce..but a great choice.

We did do other things besides eat.....we went in the building where the home-made exhibits were. Beautifully made quilts, decorated cakes, 4-H booths, pies and cakes and baking powder biscuits (none that looked as good as my mom's blue ribbon winners) and lots of jams and jellies. The photography entries took up the width of the whole building. It was wonderful to see so much talent. I couldn't believe the eye that some of the elementary school kids had....great shots ! Here is one of the entries by a youngster that I thought was really cute. Shows the patience that our canine companions have for their owners...

We went to the grandstand and heard 14karat gold perform (they were awesome)and then the main attraction came out. The group is called "The Tams" and they were great ! What energy they had....wow, the guys doing the back-up to the lead singer were getting a heck of an aerobic workout. A number of people were dancing near the stage. I'd swear this one older lady was a stripper in her youth....my, she was really putting the moves on. All she needed was a stripper pole out there in the middle of the blacktop where she was dancing and she'd been all set ! And it was all free entertainment too....

It was a fun night out...so glad we got to experience it.