Young and Wild (When Freed) - Texas State Fair

J: This past weekend C and I were in Texas for the KU/TCU game, but I must admit I had ulterior motives for traveling to the Lone Star State on this particular weekend. Sure I might have used the KU game as an excuse to get C to agree to the trip, but the main appeal for me was the chance to consume lots and lots of fried goodies at the Texas State Fair...that and the baby farm animals. Why are baby pigs so stinkin’ cute?!? Friday afternoon we bought our $5 DART tickets and headed off to the fairgrounds, and let me tell you, it was an experience for sure.

C: Jenny and I are both from Topeka, KS, so we are no strangers to the state/county fair scene. I feel comfortable speaking for both of us when I say that growing up the highlight of the summer was the Fiesta Mexicana, a typical parking lot carnival with the standard nausea inducing rides and rigged games of chance, but with the addition of stomach churning Mexican Food. Jen tells me she vomited during her last trip to the Fiesta, so I was excited to accompany her to the Texas State Fair, particularly after she linked this list of best fried foods on her blog. She admitted to me (privately) that the weekend would be a total bust if we didn’t get fried cookie dough. I thought it would be a total bust if we couldn’t get Jen to eat so much she puked. She owes me after I spewed twice the first weekend we spent together. That should tell you something about her cooking. I wouldn’t trust this particular food blogger.  

J: Let me set the record straight. It wasn’t my last trip to the Fiesta Mexicana. You guys know I don’t turn down Mexican food ever. Also, at no point did my cooking make Cory sick. He simply can’t handle his alcohol or was abnormally nervous around me to the point he made himself sick. I’ll let him decide which one of these is the truth.

Anyways, like I mentioned earlier I’d been salivating over attending this particular state fair for years. Everything’s bigger and better in Texas, right y’all? When C asked me to rank my priorities of things I wanted to do in Dallas this past weekend, eating an absurd amount of fried food obviously topped my list. We purchased $50 worth of food tickets, and we both agreed that all of them would be used to sample the various delicacies throughout the fairgrounds. Who has time for rides and games when there’s heart-clogging food to be consumed? Not us. Over the course of maybe 4 hours I tried 7 different items, probably consumed more calories than I’d eaten in the past 3 weeks combined, and by the time we left I looked like I was 6 months pregnant. Hellllllo food baby.

C: (Once again, Jen has more baby talk in her post than I can be comfortable reading.)

Fried Picnic On A Stick: That's spicy chicken, tater tots and pickle slices,
battered, rolled in spicy bread crumbs and fried. Yup. This was only snack #1.

Fried Cuban Sandwich: Marinated pork shoulder, diced ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and secret sauce wrapped
in flaky pastry and you guessed it - fried. This won "Best Taste" this year which is the top award at the fair.

Funnel Dog: Your standard corn dog, but instead of corn batter the hot dog was fried in funnel cake
batter then coated with powdered sugar and covered in chocolate sauce. This was a messy one for sure.

Fried Snickers: Pretty self explanatory. I personally thought this one was
 way too sweet (I know that's surprising coming from me), but C liked it.

Fried Oreos: Also self explanatory, and my personal fave although I
couldn't eat all three. I tapped out after maybe one and a half. 

Fried Guacamole: Both C and myself were super excited to try this one, but we were under impressed.
I don't think the guac was terribly good to begin with, and once it's fried and hot it's just a little
 too weird. It sure makes for a pretty picture though once you bit into it. :)

Fried Spaghetti and Meatball: This was just okay, but we wished we'd
saved room for the fried Cool Ranch Doritos pizza. Maybe next time

J: Food babies are a real thing. I’m not talking about actual babies. Get with it. Anyways, I was pretty much miserable the rest of the night, but you only live once! If possible, I would highly suggest attending the fair with a group of friends so you can all buy different things and take a nibble of each. Although be sure to get your own fried Oreo’s. No one should be forced to share those :)

C: We spent so much time looking for specific and interesting fried food items that we hardly did anything else at the fair. My wallet benefited from Jen’s disinterest in me winning her a stuffed animal at one of the fair games. I do not have the arm strength or accuracy to knock three milk bottles off a platform. Jen is not dating me for my athletic ability. We also did not use our tickets for any of the carnival rides. I was really hoping to drag Jen onto the Octopus, or one of the other twisting, spinning puking aids. We did not watch any of the numerous live bands, we missed the ostrich, pig, and weenie dog races, we did not see any livestock shows (no sheep judging?! I don’t know how we skipped that either), no auto show, Chinese Lantern Festival, pumpkin carving, wine garden, dog agility, greenhouse, cow milking, African acrobats, or Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling. We did however find the baby animal tent, where Jen squalled when I pointed out the piglets. I was able to drag her out before she stuck a baby goat in her purse.

J: There was cow milking?!? How did I not know this? I would have wanted to do that for sure. Also, ostrich, pig, and weenie dog races?!? I think C withheld this information from me on purpose after I spent almost an hour with the baby animals. Now we have to go back.

C: I agree, I didn’t see the Cool Ranch Doritos Fried Pizza until my food tank was well past full.

J: I don’t think my stomach or my arteries could handle it. Maybe we have one more fair trip in our future, but it is highly unlikely I’ll be making the Texas State Fair a yearly tradition. It was worth the $12 admission (side note - be sure to check for coupons online before attending any state fairs. Most of the time there are discounts offered if you attend during the week instead of a Saturday or Sunday. We got $5 off because C’s friend was a smarty pants and thought ahead like that), but now I can check attending a state fair off my bucket list. Now off to the gym so I can fit into my pants again after this indulgent weekend.

Young and Wild (When Freed) - Athens, Georgia

If you've been following my blog (or my Instagram) lately, you may have noticed I've been going on some fun weekend trips with C. My parents always encouraged my sisters and I to keep travel diaries on all of our vacations when we were growing up so we could remember the restaurants we ate at or the parks we visited etc. I thought it might be fun to do the same sort of thing on this here little blog. Funds for traveling can be limited as a 20-something, but I'm always on the lookout for exciting, new, inexpensive weekend getaways to break up my monotonous day to day life in the "real world". I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that I’m not the only 20-something that literally lives for these little mini-vacays so hopefully this series will prove to be helpful and somewhat informative. Rather than rehash my opinions (which are probably very one-sided and skewed towards activities for females) I thought it might be fun to bring C into the loop. Well, I've worked my girlish charm, and he has actually agreed to this endeavor so here is your first ever Young and Wild (When Freed) detailing our trip to Athens, Georgia for the UGA/LSU game.

C - Like Jenny says, most of us in the first few years after graduation are not able to take two week trips to Europe or Spring break in Cancun like we once could (I don’t know about you, but my parents laughed in my face when I asked them to pay for my desired trip to Mexico). In my opinion, the best way to get the most bang for your travel buck is to take a road trip to a college football game. I have my own college football web site, so of course I am partial to the sport, but there’s lots of great reasons to travel for football, even if you’re not a football fan. First off, there’s probably several college towns within an afternoon’s drive of where you live, so you don’t need to spring for airfare, and you can make a last minute decision to go. You can almost always meet up with friends who have a tailgate, just make sure you bring a side item or dessert, and don’t forget to bring your own beer or you might have to bum PBR’s from someone’s mustachioed cousin. Tickets to a couple select games will cost you hundreds, but most of the time you can help a scalper relieve inventory for less than $30. Money aside, tell me on what other vacation could you drink all day with friends, have access to a feast of finger foods, cookies, and chips and dip, then go cheer till you’re hoarse, before reliving college at some just-off-campus dive with cold beer and beautiful young people who are yet to get punched in the face by post grad life. You CAN’T. 

J - Obviously, my favorite part of a football game isn’t the game itself. It’s the tailgating beforehand, and let me tell you, the tailgating at UGA was INSANE. I’ve always been a Big 12 girl, and a KU girl at that; clearly football is not the main focus at Kansas (27 days until the first basketball game, but who’s counting?). Going to an SEC football game was eye opening. There were people everywhere. Tents lined the streets, and no inch of grass was left uncovered. I have a few 20-something friends who attempt to tailgate before games in Kansas, but they were put to shame by the people I met this past weekend. Southern hospitality truly does exist. Everyone was incredibly friendly and really made us feel welcome. Plus, I could listen to someone with a Southern accent chit-chat all day. I’m obsessed. I think I need to raise my children in the South just so they can have those adorable drawls. 

C - (Uh oh, she’s talking about children already)

J - But, enough about the people and my future offspring. We need to talk about the most important component of a tailgate - the food. Like C said, never show up to a tailgate empty-handed. Leave the beer to the boys, and whip up some corn dip or cookies and you’re in!

After several beers, I had the most amazing hot dog smothered in pimento cheese (nevermind the fact the cheese had been sitting out in the heat for several hours). OMG, you guys. It was to die for. I’m pretty sure I could have ate seven. Luckily, I restricted myself to just one, which was quite the feat after all the beer I’d consumed.

C - Jenny and I had brought 14 Coors Light pounders to the tailgate, and I still had two left as we walked to the stadium. I was able to finish one, but the other I left in the middle of the sidewalk, unopened. Hopefully some youngster got his dirty mitts on it and snuck a few sips before Dad noticed. 

J - I had one in my purse too, so we actually had 3 left. Don’t make us sound like alcoholics! 

C - I must have been drunk, because I happily paid $300 for our seats in the lower level end zone. It was worth it for what turned out to be the best game of this young season. The Georgia Bulldogs were ranked #9 coming in, and the LSU Tigers were #6 and undefeated. One of these teams had to lose and would realistically be eliminated from championship contention. The teams traded blows, each one taking a lead and looking as if it wouldn’t be relinquished. Sanford Stadium isn’t known for being loud, but on this day it was near-deafening. The Bulldogs scored late to go up 44-41, but left almost two minutes on the clock, and we all KNEW that 120 seconds was enough time for LSU to take back the lead. The Tigers had been eating up yards all day, but their final drive ended with an incomplete pass, followed immediately by a bellow from the 80,000+ Bulldogs fanatics.

J - What I heard there was blah blah blah - football - blah blah blah - more football - blah blah blah. Enough with the snooze worthy stats. I’ll tell you about the atmosphere. At some point you must attend a game in a huge stadium. Walking into that gigantic sea of red was astonishing. While I wasn’t a fan of all the barking (Bulldog fans do a lot of fist pumping and hoo-hoo-hooing. If you watch C’s video you can hear some of it at the 3:10 mark), it’s clear these people love their team. Plus you can buy an $8 Diet Coke with unlimited refills. Sold. That’s enough to keep me happy for 3+ hours.

C - After the game no one was in a hurry to leave the stadium, as it was just magnetic. Bulldogs chants were thundering the concourses. We had decided earlier to head downtown and toast to the victory, and the walk that way lead us through the heart of campus. It was a long walk, but the temperature was perfect, and we had a stop to make anyway.

J - It was such a long walk. Even after wearing flats all day, my feet were killing me. Girls, as much as you may want to wear wedges, if you’re spending an entire day at the game I highly advise going with sandals, flats, or boots without a heel. You’ll thank me I promise...and so will your boyfriend when he doesn’t have to hear you complain and carry you around the rest of the night.

C - Jenny isn’t as light as she looks. Like I was saying, as is tradition following any big win, the Chapel Bell was bonging from the fans who had lined up to play Quasimodo. We got in line and pulled that rope with all our might when it was our turn.

Downtown was packed, every restaurant had a 90 minute wait for a table, and most college bars had lines. We were able to squeeze into one place, and I ordered us a round of Yuenglings. Three bones each; I really miss the drink prices from college. As with any good college town, Athens has a downtown area loaded with local eats and drinks, cool boutique stores, and hotels. Of course, these hotels had been booked months prior, so we were staying outside of town, which meant I had to sober up before hitting the road. Another great thing about college towns is that there’s myriad late night food options, so after some nachos and a panini, as well as quarts of Coke Zero, we were ready to get outta town. 

J - Yea. Moral of the story - make sure to reserve a hotel room months in advance for any big game. That drive back to Atlanta was horrible. There was still traffic even at 10:00 p.m. and poor C. I couldn’t stay awake for the life of me. I’m pretty sure I was speaking gibberish at one point as I struggled to keep my eyes open. Thankfully he was much more coherent than this grandma and we rolled into ATL shortly after midnight. It was a long day, but so worth it. If you want a fun-filled, relatively inexpensive day (depending on tickets) I would highly suggest attending college football Saturday, and then sleeping for 17 hours afterward.