The San Diego County Fair is here in town – it started on June 8th and goes on until July 4th.  Normally, I try to avoid this as it’s expensive and can be very tiring.  However, I must have forgot how much fun it was, and mustn’t leave it for another three or four years until I go again.  Yesterday was a beautiful day for a fair, it was a fairly hot day, but not unpleasant, and the sky was a perfect blue.

The Fairgrounds are in the same venue  as the Del Mar Racetrack – here’s a link to some pictures of that – (scroll halfway down the page though to see pictures of the Racetrack).  To get to the Fairgrounds, just go on the Highway 5 North and exit Via De La Valle, make a left and another left on Jimmy Durante Blvd.  Be prepared to pay $10 for parking or you can park at local schools and take a bus for free.  Admission prices are: children under 5 are free; kids under the age of 12 are $8 and adults are $14.

When you first go through admission, you will see a place where you can play all kinds of games.  If you want to stay out of the sun, and it was hot yesterday (June 22nd) – this is a great place to stay out of the heat.  You can play many kinds of games, cards, dominoes, or just play on one of the arcade style machines.

The San Diego County Fair

San Diego County Fair

Then the aroma of the fair food is so tantalizing, and the choices are plentiful!  What to get?  Ice cream, funnel cakes, pizza, Greek food, fish and chips, Indian bread (I believe it was the American Indian, not the other Indian), caramel apples, just about anything covered with bacon – including chocolate, or hot dogs are just some of the temptations.  The fries covered with nacho cheese and bacon bits were really good!  However, it  is costly – $10 or so for a chicken basket that consisted of four pieces of chicken with fries, $6.75 for the bacon covered fries, $15.75 for three slices of pizza with two drinks, and should I even go on?  But, it’s tempting and you have to be really strong to resist those wonderful tantalizing smells, they can even make those who are full – just greedy.  It’s the Fair, and you have to give in just once in a while!

The San Diego County Fair

Then the kids will pester you for rides – or perhaps you might want to give in and try a ride yourself.  I believe the first ten days of the fair – you can get a wristband for $30 per person for all day unlimited rides, but right now those wristbands are only available to use on Wednesday and Thursday’s.  Since the majority of people go on Saturday or Sunday, they will be limited to paying about 75 cents per ride including on July 4th.  You can pay $50 for 72 tickets or $20 for 28 tickets – that’s what I mean when I say it’s expensive – be prepared to bring a lot of money with you.

The San Diego County Fair

Now, when you’ve got your tickets or wristband, you have to decide which rides to go on – at least the lines aren’t that long – like they are at Disneyland or Legoland – you can get on your ride fairly quickly – at least my kids did yesterday.

Here’s two pictures showing the Grand Wheel (the first one with the pink inflated toy in front of it was taken with my camcorder, and the second one was taken with my Iphone):

The Grand Wheel, San Diego County Fair

The San Diego County Fair

or you could choose to go upside down on a ride called Windsurf

The San Diego County Fair

Or how about the Magnum, or one of the other rides shown here?

Then, of course this place would not be complete without rides for little kids of Chandi’s age – so across the fairgrounds on the other side are rides more suitable for the little ones.

Isn’t the San Diego sky glorious?

San Diego County Fair

There are some animals out here for the kids to see and enjoy, such as horses, pigs, goats and chickens. Chandi and Luca had a lot of fun seeing the horses – here’s just one of the horses people can learn about – there were donkeys, ponies and many other kinds of breeds of horses too.  Also, there’s a safe way to pretend that you are riding on a horse too!

San Diego Fair has great family shows which are live such as Family Feud – another great way to escape some of the heat and crowds, as well as to give your aching feet a break.

Do you know that celebrities come play at the Fairgrounds – celebrities such as Victoria Justice who does more than just singing or acting – she represents  Girl Up, which is a campaign of the United Nations Foundation.  Girl Up empowers girls to fight for the right to education and the end to other atrocities that girls face.  Big Time Rush were also set to play at the same concert as Victoria Justice – tickets were only $12, my oldest daughter wanted to see the show, but we were quite tired and could not stay any longer – we left at 7:30 pm, and had been at the fair all day from 11am or so.

If you want to find out more information about the fair, visit this link: http://www.sdfair.com/

Don’t forget other than rides and food, there are also cuddly toys that are there  for the winning!

I’ve got just one final thing to say – it’s not fair if you don’t take them to the fair at least once when they’re little.  A smile from a child says it all.

San Diego County Fair