We went to the fair in Des Moines.  We drove through rain to get there but it wasn't raining in Des Moines, it was HOT!  Ok, so it was supposed to be in the mid 80's, wrong!  It was 87 when I saw the temperature as we were walking around and it got hotter after that.  We didn't perspire, we had faucets on us pouring water down our faces, shirts and our hair looked like we had just come from a shower!

 

We went to the tourism building and got some good leads for IB, that was nice (and it was air-conditioned which was even nicer!)  The Varied Industry building was mobbed, no matter where you went you were run over.  I did get a pass for Rotary (which I missed tonight) so it was a good thing we stopped at that booth.  There were few demonstrations; it was more like being in a mini-mall with so much stuff for sale on site. 

 

One neat thing was the Shriners’ were running golf carts between the gate we parked near and the entrance of the fair so we didn’t have to walk that distance, the money that is donated for the ride goes directly to the Shriners’ Hospital, neat deal for them to do!

 

We asked about the horse shows at the horse barn and found out that most of the shows are held the week before the fair now, darn.  That’s one of the things we liked to do at the fair, but, not to be.

 

After walking around, eating a corn dog and having a soda, looking at the different displays in the buildings we decided it was enough and headed for Prairie Meadows for the races.  Now, that was fun!  We didn’t even lose our money (well, I did - $10 of it) but Greg came out either ahead (by a few cents) or broke even.  Not bad for a few hours entertainment.  One sad thing though, a horse broke his leg right at the end of the race so I would envision that they had to put him down, it looked nasty.  He didn’t go down but he wasn’t able to use the foot at all, the jockey jumped off as soon as the ankle broke to take his weight off the horse.  So sad to see but their legs are so thin that it happens more than we ever want to know.

 

Then we headed for home.  Nice day.

 

I did call Jimmy to see if he had any cubicles left at his place that he’s want to sell but he sold them all years ago.  Had heard that he had lost the license for the liquor store but that is obviously not the case since he’s still there.  Welter’s in CR has some cubicles so we’ll probably have to go that route.