Travel

Fair Monkey

The Del Mar Fair is one of Kongo’s favorite annual rites.  The sunshine, the crowds of people, crazy hats, outlandish summer wear, amazing things to eat, and miles of booths filled with things for sale you didn’t know you needed until you saw them.  Kongo loves all the weird looking people with microphones who stand on slightly elevated booths and teach you about amazing kitchen utensils, choppers, knives, miracle sweepers, car wax, salsa choppers, and salad shooters.

He loves looking at all the women and girls showing too much cleavage and tattoos, the little prize tags on flower arrangements, the smells inside the livestock barns, and the 4-H kids showing off their market pigs.  Kongo likes the smells of things roasting over mesquite coals mixed with the cotton candy aromas wafting over from the food booth next door.

Kongo just loves fairs.  The following are a few pictures from this year’s Del Mar Fair.

Different musical groups are always playing somewhere in the fair.
Kongo always starts his fair ritual with a piping hot cinnamon bun loaded with nuts and icing. Here he balances it all on a recycle bin as Mrs. Kongo harps in the background: “Don’t put it THERE!”
Fried cheeseburgers and dill pickles?
It just wouldn’t be the Del Mar Fair without some guy selling hand cranked salsa makers.
Mrs. Kongo (green top) is mesmerized by the Vitamix demonstration. Yes, of course Kongo took one home with him because wouldn’t that be a great way to make banana ice cream with frozen strawberries?
Kongo admires all the cool ladders he could go climbing around on. No, he didn’t bring any of these home since he already has a foldable, stackable, does everything ladder from a previous fair.
Kongo tries on a pair of banana-colored shoes that caught his fancy. Of course he HAD TO GET THESE and in fact got two pair because the third pair was free (fair special) and they were bound to fit one of his sons and they were light as a feather and ….well you know, they were just there and too cool to pass by.

The Del Mar Fair runs every year from mid June through the July 4th.  The only good thing about the end of the fair is that it ushers in horse racing season (you know…where the surf meets the turf in old Del Mar).

Learn more about the Del Mar Fair and things to do there here.

Travel safe.  Have fun.

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