Tri-Tip, Teets, and Trams: California State Fair!

Today we had an awesome day at the California State Fair. Since it was packed with so much cool stuff, I've uploaded lots of pictures and will tell the story of our day using them...

My sister, daughter and myself are all crazy animal lovers which meant there was tons for us to get excited about at the fair. Not only were there the livestock pavilions to wander around, there were many opportunities to actually interact with the animals. This was the best petting zoo we've ever been in-- full of fawns, kangaroos, and llamas as well as your typical barn animals.

The UC Davis Ag. division hosts lots of "Discovery Zones" for the kids (and adults too), with everything from rope wrangling to butter churning. In this one we were invited to milk a cow and a goat. Heather chose the goat, Ella and Dan did the cow (I've already milked both, thanks to Jetta). Here they are in action (above) and holding their certificates (below). In this particular center, Dave suggested I feed Delia and be part of the "Milking" exhibit-- ha ha.


One of our favorite parts of the day was visiting the Livestock Nursery. This was a special place where the ready-to-deliver-any-minute animals were kept. Having just gone through the birthing process, I was a little appalled to find that they put the animals on an actual stage and people could sit in bleachers to watch cows, pigs, goats, sheep, etc. be born! I got over this quickly, though, when we saw the newly born calf, lambs and piglets up close. They're just animals-- they don't care. Seeing these adorable little minis was just amazing!

We thought nothing could top the baby animals, but then we found the California Wildlife exhibit. This was full of tanks of turtles, catfish, frogs and tadpoles. This big "bathtub" (as Ella called it) was full of Sturgeon out of the Sacramento River. These huge fish are docile and toothless so we were encouraged to pet them!

We ended a fantastic, but hot and tiring day with an open air tram/monorail ride around the whole fair grounds.

There were so many other great parts of the day that I just didn't get or post pictures of. For example, we all picked out fun lunches (tri-tip, fried artichoke hearts, stuffed pitas...). We also found a total oasis of cool, calm and classy in the middle of the fair grounds-- a wine tasting area. We all enjoyed samples of wine slushies. We learned about fire safety, saw exotic bugs and in general got to experience a little bit of everything that is California!