Harrogate Stray Fair
Topic: Harrogate
Today I took Ryan for a walk in his stroller and saw that the carnival that had been setting up the day before was now up and running. It's called the Harrogate Stray Fair, and goes from today until Sept. 3. It had just opened not too long before we got there, and not everything was in full swing yet. However, it was shaping up to be fun. It was closer to midways I've seen in the States than to ones I've seen in Germany, style wise. There were the usual carnival type rides. What was nice is that the Fair is very family oriented. There's no alcohol, and there are tons of rides for little kids. Ryan's a bit too little for pretty much all of them. However, there was one that I could go on and hold him. The photo on the left was taken while we were on the ride. The one on the right was taken in front of the ride. Both were taken with my camera phone. Fun with phones! The ride was a very tame version of the buccaneer type ride.
There were lots of games to play. Before we went on the ride, I won Ryan a stuffed cougar from a dart game. The way the games are set up, you are basically just paying for the prize, but that's nice because no one gets skunked.
There were also plenty of food concessions, of which I amazingly did not partake. There was one that had fresh donuts, which I did stop at. However, they wouldn't be ready until later on in the evening, so I didn't get to have one. I guess that was God saying, "Don't do it!" There were food stands advertising "American style" hamburgers and food. I thought that was funny. Of course instead of fries, they are called "chips." I hadn't heard of "chip butties," though. I ought to have asked. Another difference in food nomenclature is "candy floss" for cotton candy. I hadn't heard that one before.
All in all it only took me and Ryan about fifteen or twenty minutes to walk though the Fair, but for kids a little older there was a lot to do. (The photo on the left shows only one side of the Fair. The left row of attractions is actually the middle, and there's another whole row to the left of that. I took the photo from pretty far down the stretch, but behind me there are still a few more attractions.) There are going to be fireworks on Wednesday night, but that's probably way after Ryan's bedtime. We'll see what happens. Maybe we'll get lucky and be able to see them from our house.