The Galasso Files: The 11 Best Days of Summer

Cows and Pigs and Chickens, Oh My!

The “11 Best Days of Summer” is the local lingo in reference to the Maryland State Fair. After listening to weeks of radio announcers talking up the “11 Best Days of Summer” – I had the brilliant idea that we should take Rosie. After all – they have animals and she loves animals. Could be a match made in heaven, right? Wrong. Once again, it is confirmed that I am indeed a city girl – and farm livin’ is NOT the life for me.

We drive up to the Fairgrounds and there are tons of people just everywhere. We load Rosie into her umbrella stroller and start walking (er…waddling for some of us) through the crowds and in the heat towards the entrance. Parking cost us $8. Which wasn’t terrible until we realized that admission was going to cost us $8 each as well. Not a big deal – but had I thought this plan up two days earlier, Rich could have gotten free tickets from work. Free is better than $16 any day!

So we walk through the entrance gingerly…trying to avoid the various piles of poo from the cows and horses that have gone before us. I am almost immediately cranky. It is hot. There are a lot of very rude people pushing and shoving. It is stinky…and I am feeling very pregnant and not up for this adventure. But – I want Rosie to see the cows, so we carry on.

We follow our noses to the cow building. Cows, flies and cow poop everywhere. Unfortunately, they are packing many of the cows up for the night and others are heading over to a cow-judging contest – so we wander through trying to find a cow that Rosie can see close-up. We finally find said cow, and not only do we get close to her…but Rosie got to pet her too! Oy – the germ-a-phobe in me is going wild. I resist the urge to hose her off – but I do get her shuttled over to a hand washing station ASAP so I can scrub her down before she puts her hands in her mouth.

All told – we spend just over an hour at the fair. The highlight of my trip is getting up close and personal to the “2008 Lamb and Wool Queen” (pictured below) – a woman who was just BEYOND happy to be pinning ribbons on lambs…We decided that we can pretty much skip the Maryland State Fair for the next decade or so until Rosie is old enough to ride some of the rides.

To top off our experience, I started having some Braxton-Hicks contractions while we were walking around. Now – that just ads some fun to the whole experience. We were all happy to get home, showered and disinfected! I can think of 11 better days from this summer!