County Fair - Champaign, IL

Summer in the midwest brings many traditions including county fairs.  Since my two sons were little, we've been going to the Friday night demolition derby at the Champaign County Fair.  Now I'm repeating the process with my two grandsons.   Tonight was derby night.

We headed to the fair with the temperature in the mid-90's and a heat advisory (heat index 105).  Truthfully, staying home in the air-conditioning sounded pretty good but I was convinced otherwise.

Part of the "going to the fair" tradition is eating a variety of typical fair food.  For me, it's always a corn dog (the only time all year I actually eat a hot dog), hot french fries - only from Culler's (some people like them topped with vinegar  - I just like salt), and a lemon shake-up.    In essence, the whole meal is a bunch of grease and sugar.  But there's something about eating it at the fair that makes it delicious.

After consuming our fries and corn dog, we headed to the grandstands.  The fair has a really nice grandstand, but there was no breeze and it was soooooooo hot.  How hot was it?  Garrett and Evan were sweating just sitting - wet hair and wet shirts.

In case you've never been to a demolition derby, here are a few basics.  Drivers enter a car with the intent to destroy it by driving it repeatedly into the other cars that have been entered.  Last car still running (engine running, able to actually move it) wins the heat.   You can tell some drivers really get into prepping their cars with extra metal, revamped exhaust system etc.  They've also removed all glass.

They start out with a fairly intact vehicle (see below).

However, by the time the heat is finished, they often look like this (same car as in the above picture)

We enjoyed the derby but weren't quite finished with our fair activities.  We had to ride some rides!  I was recruited to ride bumper cars with Evan as neither he nor Garrett were tall enough to ride by themselves.  What is it about bumper cars that brings out your evil twin?  Who can I plow into with my bumper car?????

The Champaign County fair has a really great selection of "kid only" rides and we've been very impressed with how nice the people are that manage them.  There's a little dragon roller coaster, a teeny ferris wheel (couldn't talk either one of the kids into riding the big ferris wheel with me).  Garrett enjoyed the dinosaur ride

While Evan preferred the motorcycles (hmmmm...future riding buddy?)

The evening was topped off with a funnel cake....if you haven't every had a funnel cake, its essentially pancake batter that is swirled into a deep fryer and covered with powdered sugar when its done cooking. Trust me when I say this....one of them is more than enough for 5 or 6 people.  You DO NOT want to eat a lot of this!

So, depending on how you look at it, this was either an evening filled with violence and food that couldn't be more unhealthy OR it was a great way to spend an evening with a couple of handsome/fun dudes.  If you haven't taken your kids there, give it a shot.  Only warning...take cash.  They don't take credit cards and between the food, the grandstand activity (there are different options each night of the fair), and the carnival rides, you're going to spend a little cash! 

I loved creating these memories with my kids and am enjoying repeating that with Evan and Garrett. Thanks, Matt and Jennie, for letting me tag along!