"It's like getting your passport stamped," our friend C warned us as we embarked on the long-ish drive from Cleveland to Spring Mills, Pennsylvania. Nothing she said could have prepared me for the overwhelming glory that is the Grange Fair in Centre County (I'm growing quite fond of describing this trip because my heart swells every time I see "centre" spelled the way I was taught as a child).
Thousands of people travel to the fair and camp there for a week in tents that are arranged like little homes with couches, tables, TVs, lawn chairs and decor. This is not a lowly fair of corndogs and dizzying rides, although those things are present. In addition, halls full of preserves, pumpkins, children's keychain collections (and one very disturbing collection of Nazi toy soldiers depicted crushing an American tank - that one got a blue ribbon, I'm not kidding.) Barns full of goats and sheep and cows. A tractor pull.
And the food, oh, the food. I believe we ate, in order, hot wings and garlic wings, fries, a funnel cake, sno-cones, mint-chip ice cream, an apple dumpling, and more fries before bed. Delicious.
In the morning we ate omelettes made with raw milk from the cows on C's farm and played with some curious barn kittens before driving back to Cleveland. All in 24 hours. I felt like I'd been gone for a week.
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