Tourists in our own backyard
Hi there -- Ellen the Answer Girl here, guest-blogging while Jen and Steve are on their way back from Ethiopia. Grace and I spent a little time doing tourist stuff in the past couple of days, so I thought I'd report in.
Yesterday we went to the Topsham Fair. It might surprise you -- it surprised me -- that the Topsham Fair is not on the same road as the Topsham Fair Mall. It's not hard to find, though, and Grace and I arrived a little after 1:00 yesterday afternoon.
Unfortunately, the midway doesn't open until 3:00. We spent a little time looking at the miniature horses. Grace had some ice cream. Then we left, to return later in the day (the hand-stamp allows multiple reentries all day long).
Fairs are supposed to celebrate families and farmers, but they're rather expensive. Tickets for rides are $1 apiece, but no ride costs less than two tickets. The Giant Slide was the best deal, at 2 tickets a go; it's fun at any age. The merry-go-round, at 3 tickets a ride, was pretty good, too. The Fun House, also three tickets a ride, was a complete rip-off, but Grace insisted -- everyone has to learn this lesson the hard way.
We got to the show ring just after yesterday's pig scramble, for kids in the 7-year-old group (the 5-year-old pig scramble is Thursday night; fair warning, Lechners, Grace wants to go back for this). Each kid gets a burlap sack, and they chase a bunch of piglets around the arena. If you can catch a pig in your sack, you get to keep it. Several parents were carrying pigs in sacks, and a few said they planned to keep them. The piglets, for their part, seemed mostly unbothered at being kept in sacks -- except for one, who was shrieking. One of the winners' dads let Grace pet one of the piglets through the sack.
A horse-drawn wagon had been carrying people back and forth to the parking lot and Grace wanted to do this, but they seemed to be on a dinner break at the time we were ready to leave. Instead, we rode on a miniature train made out of barrels, pulled by an antique tractor. (The weight limit in these barrels is 100 lbs.; the conductor let me ride on a seat at the very back.)
This morning's adventure was the Desert of Maine. The Desert of Maine is not even four miles from the Lechners' home, but none of us had ever visited. It's a bit of a tourist trap, but a genuinely fascinating geological phenomenon: a deposit of glacier silt -- sand -- covering hundreds of acres, right in the center of a forest. Sand dunes run up to 90 feet high, and are constantly shifting. The flyer advertises "Hours of Entertainment, Educational and Unique Experiences" -- I don't know about hours, but it was a fun way to spend a morning.
Grace is having a little quiet time right now while I do some cleaning. She has gymnastics this afternoon, and then we're off to the airport to welcome home her new baby brother! (And her parents, of course.)
Yesterday we went to the Topsham Fair. It might surprise you -- it surprised me -- that the Topsham Fair is not on the same road as the Topsham Fair Mall. It's not hard to find, though, and Grace and I arrived a little after 1:00 yesterday afternoon.
Unfortunately, the midway doesn't open until 3:00. We spent a little time looking at the miniature horses. Grace had some ice cream. Then we left, to return later in the day (the hand-stamp allows multiple reentries all day long).
Fairs are supposed to celebrate families and farmers, but they're rather expensive. Tickets for rides are $1 apiece, but no ride costs less than two tickets. The Giant Slide was the best deal, at 2 tickets a go; it's fun at any age. The merry-go-round, at 3 tickets a ride, was pretty good, too. The Fun House, also three tickets a ride, was a complete rip-off, but Grace insisted -- everyone has to learn this lesson the hard way.
We got to the show ring just after yesterday's pig scramble, for kids in the 7-year-old group (the 5-year-old pig scramble is Thursday night; fair warning, Lechners, Grace wants to go back for this). Each kid gets a burlap sack, and they chase a bunch of piglets around the arena. If you can catch a pig in your sack, you get to keep it. Several parents were carrying pigs in sacks, and a few said they planned to keep them. The piglets, for their part, seemed mostly unbothered at being kept in sacks -- except for one, who was shrieking. One of the winners' dads let Grace pet one of the piglets through the sack.
A horse-drawn wagon had been carrying people back and forth to the parking lot and Grace wanted to do this, but they seemed to be on a dinner break at the time we were ready to leave. Instead, we rode on a miniature train made out of barrels, pulled by an antique tractor. (The weight limit in these barrels is 100 lbs.; the conductor let me ride on a seat at the very back.)
This morning's adventure was the Desert of Maine. The Desert of Maine is not even four miles from the Lechners' home, but none of us had ever visited. It's a bit of a tourist trap, but a genuinely fascinating geological phenomenon: a deposit of glacier silt -- sand -- covering hundreds of acres, right in the center of a forest. Sand dunes run up to 90 feet high, and are constantly shifting. The flyer advertises "Hours of Entertainment, Educational and Unique Experiences" -- I don't know about hours, but it was a fun way to spend a morning.
Grace is having a little quiet time right now while I do some cleaning. She has gymnastics this afternoon, and then we're off to the airport to welcome home her new baby brother! (And her parents, of course.)
posted by Jennifer Lechner at
1:24 PM
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