We were happy to discover that our week in NH coincided with the annual fair in neighboring Fryeburg, ME. We decided to go on Tuesday, as that was Senior Citizen Day and older folks, like myself, would be let in for free. Betty, being so much younger than me, would be stuck paying the full $10 admission.

We set out around 10am for the nominal 12 mile drive from North Conway to the fairgrounds. After about 10 minutes, we found ourselves stuck in a line of traffic, still about 3 miles from the Maine border. Thinking it must be an accident, we settled back and fortified ourselves with a bit of chocolate we brought along.

Betty amused herself taking pictures of the quintessentially small-town America inching by our window as we crawled along Main Street.

Eventually, we realized that we were stuck in the "Fair traffic". It took us in total about 2 hours to make the last five miles to the fairgrounds where we grabbed the first available outside parking spot ($5) and walked over to the Livestock Entrance. It was a bit disappointing that the girl in the booth so readily believed that I was over 65. I offered ID, but she said it wasn’t necessary. Sigh.

It was a pretty big deal, compared to our hometown Marshfield Fair. Probably about four times the size.

And Senior Day really brought out the crowds.

Lots of the usual crafts were on display, several barns full, actually.

And more home preserved fruits and veggies than you could ever eat. They were PA announcements all day inviting folks to the final judging of this or that category of jellies or radishes or whatever.

This cow had just left the ring where she was judged against several others. She lost, but she took it well. It must be so hard to pose for strangers after a defeat like that. Good for you, Bossy.

This is possibly a llama. Just look at those eyes. Her whole life must consist of putting up with stuff like this. And she does it, because that’s her role.
Still, sometimes her mind will drift back to those carefree days in the Andes and that young buck with the goofy smile. What might have been.

I moved quickly along.

There were (literally) tons of pigs in the 2 or 3 swine barns. Every single one of them was eating for every moment of the entire time we were there.

This is Sparkle. She will fight me for her food if necessary. No problem, Sparkle.
The way the pigs eat, their food seems to get all mixed up with the sawdust bedding of the pen, not to mention any of the gross stuff already mixed into the bedding. It makes you wonder how many times a particular particle of food/wood/poop is processed through the same pig.

They had a large midway with lots of games and rides but we passed on all of it.

There was sulky racing going on constantly while we were there, either the races themselves or practicing in between. Betty and I spent way too much time trying to use Wikipedia to determine if they were pacers or trotters. We never did .

While setting my camera up on the rail to catch a racer coming in from the left, I was surprised by this guy blasting by the other way about five feet from me.

They had a barn full of various types of wagons from a local collector. This is a genuine European Gypsy Caravan.

I managed to keep amused while Betty was in the jewelry tent or the quilt barn or whatever.

By about 3pm, we had covered everything we wanted to see. Fortunately, the ride back to NH was relatively traffic free.