For years I’ve wanted to visit the South Carolina State Fair. I’ve passed by the empty fair grounds so many times on my way to meetings at SCETV. Once I even attended a meeting while the fair was in session, but didn’t have time to stop. This year, now that I don’t have obligations during the week, I was determined to make it happen. I called Dwight, since he lives in Columbia, to see if he wanted to come along.
We had planned to do this on Thursday, but I had looked at my calendar wrong, and discovered a conflict. Yes, retired people do have scheduling conflicts. Fortunately, Dwight was able to shift his schedule, and we were able to head down on Thursday.
October 9 was opening day. Gates opened at noon, so we headed on over and got into a VERY long line.
However, the line split into several openings, so when the time came, it moved more efficiently that we thought it would. At noon a recording of the Star Spangled Banner played over the loudspeakers, and we were off.
Our first stop was not the ticket booth, but a security check-point. There was a magnetometer and the works. I was loaded down with camera equipment, but the thing that held me up was my little Barlow knife. They wouldn’t let it through. I could either surrender it, or walk it back to the car. Knowing that the line was moving fairly quickly, I chose the latter rather than lose a knife. Fortunately, the security lady let Dwight hold my place in line so I was able to skip ahead.
Even though the gates were open at noon, only the exhibits opened at that time. The midway wouldn’t open until 3:00. That was OK, though. I had been lamenting the demise of all of the agricultural exhibits at the local county fairs, so that’s where we would have started anyway.
