Jessica, Namine, and I spent the day at the fair, along with two of Jessica’s sisters, Namine’s cousin, and my sister. But before I get into all that, I have to vent a little bit.
I’ve written before about how we have a larger vehicle to accommodate Namine’s wheelchairs. We used to just have a placard, but we’ve had a disability plate for some time now. Unfortunately, no one ever notices.
As we drove around the outside of the State Fair grounds looking for a place to park, every single park attendant — I’m not exaggerating — directed us to the general parking. And every single time, Jessica or I would have to yell out the window (because it’s loud, although I do admit it was pretty infuriating by the fourth time) that we had disability plates.
Well, I digress. We did get parked in the disability parking, and made our way into the park. No one had eaten breakfast, so our first stop was to get some flavored milk. We had our choice of chocolate, strawberry, salted caramel, root beer, and mint. We couldn’t make up our minds, so we got one of each and tried them all.
Our next stop was to meet up with everyone else, but we stopped at a radio booth on the way. They had a giant Connect Four, and the person working the booth put it on the ground so Namine and her cousin could play.
After we met up with everyone, we all got some corn on the cob and hunkered down in the shade. Every year at the fair — well, the years we’re able to go — Namine gets corn on the cob. With her impending braces, she won’t be able to have any next year, so she wanted to enjoy it while she can.
Namine was very excited to go on the giant slide, but it’s not accessible at all. Every year I carry Namine up the stairs (there are a lot), and it turns out I’m not yet too old. I’ll keep doing it for as long as I can.
Namine and her cousin also went on a few other rides. Because Namine has a heart defect, we exercised discretion over the rides she could go on. Every ride had a heart warning on it, even the slow ones, and I suspect that was just a CYA move on the fair’s part.
After the girls rode some rides, they wanted to use their last tickets on a game. Namine won a stuffed duck, and her cousin picked some small plushy toy (I don’t remember what). Jessica took a turn as well, and she won a small plushy. The attendant let us trade in the two small toys for one big one, and Namine’s cousin chose a llama. Namine then decided to trade in her duck for a llama, too.
The girls were also excited that there was a face paint booth, but upon arriving at it, Namine’s cousin decided to get her hair colored instead. Namine still preferred to have her face painted. She chose a tabby cat pattern.
The last ride of the day for us was the giant Ferris Wheel. Despite having a ramp and a handicap sign, I was dismayed to find that it is still not accessible. I wrote about this last year, and nothing has changed.
If you’ll allow me a moment here… come on, people. Throwing a handicap sign and half-assing a ramp that doesn’t even properly touch the ground is not offering accessibility — not even close! Don’t lie about it. We weren’t the only family who had to leave their wheelchair at the bottom of the ramp, either.
But I digress. Both girls loved riding the Ferris Wheel. I had fun, too.
Since all the food we’d had so far was of the fairly (ha ha) normal variety, we had to get something fun. Namine picked a pork chop on a stick. (She let me and Jessica have a bite. Oh my goodness, but it was juicy.) I got deep-fried alligator nuggets, which both Namine and her cousin were willing to try. Namine was surprised to find that it tasted just like chicken.
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