We recently made my annual pilgrimage to the State Fair of Texas, this time as a family of four. Regarding the State Fair of Texas, did you know:
- The State Fair was first held at its current location in Dallas in 1886.
- The Texas-OU football game has been played annually, since 1929, at the Cotton Bowl, which is in the middle of Fair Park.
- The ubiquitous corny dog was invented by the Fletcher brothers and popularized at the State Fair of Texas.
- Speaking of fried foods, the State Fair of Texas is where you can get almost anything deep fried or chicken-fried. Chicken-fried bacon, fried banana split, deep-fried s’mores (Ok, these were good), Texas fried jelly belly beans, fried chocolate truffles are just a few of the new foods offered at the State Fair this year.
- The Texas Star located at Fair Park is the largest Ferris wheel in North America.
- Fair Park was first choice of the Dallas Cowboys for their new stadium until former Mayor Laura Miller ran them off (in less than 48 hours - she’s got skills).
- Saxon made her 2nd visit to the Fair on the same day Samantha made her 1st.
Here are some photographs from our visit. 
watching the dancing with dogs show 
samantha awake, looking for the dogs (actually watching her sister) 
running around proved to be much more fun than watching the dogs dance 
performing
here’s one of those world-famous Fletcher’s corn dogs. 
One word: yummy 
mangy corn dog? 
at the young farmer’s exhibit, staffed by FFA (that’s Future Farmer’s of America for you urbanites) 
stopping for corn (which, of course, feeds everything at the farm) 
planting her onion “seed” 
cow milking - saxon told the gal she knew all about this because she sees it at home all the time. 
saxon’s favorite activity was the petting zoo, where she got to feed everything from baby goats to giraffes. the ostriches and emus were true-to-form with their stares and freaky snakelike neck movements. yikes.
