The Grange Fair: Sunset on the Midway

I love late August. It's that wistful time of year when it's still summer out, but sweet summer is showing her age at the edges. The mornings are misty and cool. Darkness is coming earlier now, and night-time temps are comfy for sleeping. There is talk of the start of school. You begin to get a sense of the bittersweet ending of things. It must be time for the fair!

Every year for almost the past twenty (with the exception of last year, when I went alone), I have met one of my dear girlfriends at the Grange Fair, in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania, for an evening at the fair. We meet at the main gate in mid- to late afternoon and walk ourselves exhausted, eating everything in sight. And oh my, there are plenty of delightful snacks to be had!

Real food of all kinds (soup in a bowl, subs, full meals), peach dumplings with cinnamon ice cream, blackberry shortcake with whipped cream piled high, fried everything you can think of - veggies, oreos, pickles. Every year, our only goal is to have fun and visit our favorite places and buy things and maybe even discover some new treat.

This year, my girlfriend came up with her two daughters and her mom in tow, and what a delightful time we had at the fair. We walked around and shopped for weird stuff (lawn ornaments are big here - anybody want a metal dinosaur for the yard? also: tool tents!) and chatted and caught up. We saw the quilts and the canned goods; we walked through the tenting encampment area, admiring all the lights and decorations; we visited the goats.

The day's entry fee included an armband to ride all the rides, and so the little girls did that while we adults looked on. The only ride I rode was one you can see in this picture: the ferris wheel, which is a favorite of mine. I'm good on uppy-downy rides; not so much on roundy-roundy ones, which make me queasy.

The little girls and I rode the ferris wheel at sunset, and that was a very fine time, indeed. The view from there was awesome, possibly the best from anywhere on the grounds. The clouds were orange behind the hills before the light faded into darkness. But our visit wasn't over - no, not quite yet.

We had more walking to do and more snacks to eat yet, and we finally closed the place down at 10:45. We visited one final stand, and bought the last monkey bread (cinnamon rolls) they had, as the lights went out around us. And then it was all hugs and kisses, and a round of bittersweet good-byes at the cars, before everybody left to go home. It was a good day indeed. We'll hope to see you all again next year. I'll meet you at the fair!

The soundtrack: Bruce Hornsby, with The End of the Innocence.

Bonus links: prior visits to the Grange Fair:

Meet Me At the Fair! (2012)
In Which We Make New Friends At the Fair! (2013)
The "Monkey Man" and the Monkey's Kiss (2014)
Here There Be Cows (2015)

Also, I visited the Arboretum on this day and snagged a picture of a dragonfly against a PINK water lily. I couldn't bear for you not to see it, so it is included in the extras.  :-)  And so you see that at mid-day, summer still lingers. . . . .