Tradition With A Twist.

I am a big fan of traditions and one tradition for me is to go the fair every late September/early October. With the exception of one or two years, I have gone every year for the last 15-18 years and I absolutely love to go! I have fond memories of getting out of school early:D and being packed up with everyone else in the station wagon and going away. My favorite part of the fair was going to see the animals and looking for the baby piglets, goats, and chicks. We would spend a lot of time walking through all the barns and gazing at the animals. I really enjoyed looking at the horses and intently reading all the little "did-you-know?" posters and placards around the stalls. Ahhh yes! The memories:)

Fair time rolled around again on Saturday and with it came some new (and unexpected) memories! First of all, it was five girls in the car where the conversation ranged from trying to figure out whether it was a volunteer fireman or a biker who had passed away and whose funeral seemed to be what woke this one sleepy little town up to memories being shared about the time we almost got hit by a car when we came off of I-80 coming back from the fair two years ago. Secondly, we girls were happily chatting while I drove on I-80 when I noticed the red lights that started to shine in front of me and I vaguely remembered my mom's passing comment on Thursday night: "Just be careful on I-80 as the two lanes drop down to a single lane for a while." I'll be honest: I *heard* what she said, but I didn't *really hear*. Because if I would have *really heard* her, I would have realized that weekend traffic on a major interstate is a tad bit different from the slow-poke drive on a weekday (and in my parent's case, it was on Wednesday that they went to the fair) and I would have found an alternate route to take.

Mental note for next time.

Make that a written note for next time;). I don't trust my memory!

So for the next 1 1/2 hours, the girls and I made our way over approximately 3, maaaaybe 4 miles. Let me tell ya, we got to study the highway paving job real well! Have you ever noticed how the highway is made up of a bunch of different colors? No? You've never noticed? Well I'll fill you in since I had all the time in the world to sit in my parked car on the highway and look at the beautiful artwork under my tires. It truly looked like a mosaic masterpiece and I was almost sorry that highway travelers never have a chance to explore the wonders and beauty of free art right under their, uh, feet. Almost, but not really!

I tend to get practical in a situation like this and think to myself, "well, the only way around this is through this" and that's exactly what I thought Saturday. It did help that there were four other girls in the car, plus I'm a people-watcher (remember?) so I'm sure I would have endured and perhaps even enjoyed the wait. As it happened, there were four other girls in the car and, I might add, one of them had to go to the bathroom really bad! So to pass the time, we played a game. It was pretty fun to try to find all the letters of the alphabet on the cars ahead of us... the car directly in front of us had the letters like "q", "u", "w", "x", "y", and "z" so let's just say the game probably lasted all of 3.5 minutes:).

Jen was in the middle of telling a story when I exclaimed, "Girls! We're about to go over 15 mph!!!" but my excitement was short-lived as we soon dropped down to zero. So then Rachel suggested singing a song with different noises. "Victory In Jesus" sounded neat with the alto and soprano voices blending together with "do-do-do... da-da-da-da":D. It was even better when we actually sang the words;).

When we had left the church parking lot in the morning, I would say the weather was nice. By the time we left the art museum (read: highway), it was overcast and starting to sprinkle a tiny bit. But by the time we got to the fair, all seemed well, so I left my jacket and umbrella in the car.

I regretted that decision later.

All of us girls had sweaters/jackets over our shirts, but it was still pretty chilly. Poor Jen only had on backless sneakers and no socks and was absolutely freezing. Finally we all agreed to duck into the warm buildings to warm up... and to, umm, see what was in them too;) After we did the buildings, we walked around a little shivering outside and telling each other we were all going to have colds in the morning. It was on this thought that we left the fair and said good-byes at church two hours later.

My mom and I have been watching one episode of "Road To Avonlea" each evening (thanks Becky!) and Saturday evening was no different. I snuggled in my warm pjs and hunkered down under a cozy afghan, all the while feeling a little *tickle* in my throat. Comforted by the fact that I was not going to suffer a cold alone but have four other sympathizers, I finished the episode and crawled into bed. Sure enough, Sunday morning found me with a cold. As I went around and said good morning to the other girls, I said to each of them: "you have a cold too, don't you." It was a statement, for I was sure I knew it as fact.

But nooo. Each of the girls looked at me and each of the girls said, "Oh no... I feel fine!"

Hmph.

That's just the way it is...:). I don't think I'm going to make this a part of my going-to-the-fair tradition. I really can do without the cold next time... and the traffic pile up. But hey, what's a little variety for the day, right? After all, it could have been worse... we could've been stuck in traffic for 3 hours:D. Sometimes, that's just the way it is!!!