State Fair of Texas 2014

A friend and coworker of mine asked me to go to the State Fair of Texas on this wonderfully cool day. It was the perfect weather and day to go. She had free tickets and she was paying for everything, how could I say, "No?" So not to go into too much detail, I figured I'd just post a few pictures from the day that I took with my cellphone.

I did not photograph it but I would say that the Chicken Fried Loaded Baked Potato was pretty good. Visually, it wasn't at all what I was expecting — an actual loaded baked potato that ha been deep fried — but it did at least taste like it should. I think it was around 14 tickets, which is WAY overpriced, but I made a decision to try at least a few of the fried finalists...and well, my friend was paying. Anyway...on to the photos.

Big Tex!

The Cotton Bowl

The Texas Star

Stockyard building replica

Alamo replica

Fried Sweet Texas

Fried Sweet Texas is one of the Big Tex Choice Awards 2014 Finalist (as reported by D Magazine's Sidedish. It's best described on the StateFairBlog:

“Traveling across Texas to try the best and most popular desserts gave inspiration for this fried treat. Fried Sweet Texas starts with fresh pie dough filled with crunchy pecan pie, juicy peach cobbler and creamy buttermilk pie. It is then deep fried until the crust is golden brown and flaky, and then served up with a side of Texas’ own Blue Bell Vanilla Ice Cream. A real tribute to Texans and their amazing sweet treats!"

In all fairness, the dessert is good. Is it better than Molten Chocolate Cake at Chili's (I think) or even better than the cinnamon rolls at Cici's? In my opinion, no. In fact, I think I used 14 tickets which amounts to $7.00 for the Fried Sweet Texas dessert and I wasn't satiated or my taste buds fulfilled. I can eat all I want of the cinnamon rolls with the Cici's buffet OR Death by Chocolate is like $5.00. Both you get more for your money and thinking about them right now, makes my mouth water. I don't have that reaction with the Fried Sweet Texas. The only thing I can say about that dessert is I tried it. However, I cannot recommend it!
 

Cobra Mustang golf cart

2014 Cobra Mustang Convertible

Big Tex Game Card

As labeled, the above image is a Big Tex Game Card. You MUST purchase one of these to be able to play ANY of the games along the Midway. It's ridiculous! My friend purchased two forty credit game cards for $20 each. That means we paid $40 for 80 credits. With me? Most games on the Midway charge 5 credits or more. My friend liked the water gun games...you know the ones where you shoot water into the mouth of something and it either moves stuff in a race of some kind or blows up a balloon until it pops. In my mind, these are tailored to children. As that, the games should be priced as so. However, the two that we played were 10 credits per player and some had a minimum of 2 or 4 players to play. So they get more money and only one winner. Anyway, we looked specifically for those water gun games that would allow a minimum of 2 players. Anyway, we had to play twice to win a prize. I let my friend win both times to get a 12-15" tall Gizmo. Yep! That's Gizmo from Gremlins. I told my friend that she paid $40 for that stuffed Gizmo which she probably could have paid much less for at somewhere like Amazon.com, Walmart or Target and she paid that much for a movie item from like twenty years ago! Anyway, I then won her a football in a football throw contest. That cost her $20 since I missed the first two times.

So, the main point of my mentioning the game card is that the State Fair has finally found a way to gouge even more money from Fair attendees. Coupons are used for food and rides only. Game cards are used only for Midway games. So, if you have any amount left over of cards or coupons, it makes it more difficult to use them all before you leave as they cannot be cross used.