Alaska State Fair

As of the 30th of August, I have become acquainted with the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, Alaska.

I went,
I saw,
I competed,
and I did not leave empty handed.

Pictures will follow this post tomorrow, but meantime, let me tell you about my adventures at the Alaska State Fair Fiddle Contest.

I arrived at the fair at precisely 3pm. We had taken the train out. At 2:30 I guess we were a little ahead of schedule and, Heavin forbid we get there early, we proceeded to crawl at a snail's pace for the entire last half hour and I came to the conclusion that it would've been faster to get out and walk. My friend Jess had come with, as well as my aunt Annie and uncle Dave. We jumped off that train like horses when the gate's pulled on race-day.. and promptly stopped and said, "What now?"
Oh.
Who said following the crowd was bad? We did, and it led us to the front gate. We aren't sheep; we just follow when it floats our boats to do so.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate crowds? On the train, I had not been the least bit nervous about the fiddle contest.
In the crowds, I was the most irritable and on-edge person ever. I hate being in constant physical contact with sweaty, smelly, weird-looking people who decided getting a shirt tatooed on is cooler than actually wearing one. Oh, and the hair?
Outrageous.
Fair-hair. Need I say more?
[I didn't think so...]

After much walking around pointlessly and tripping in circles for what seemed hours, Jess and I stumbled into the woman accepting the fiddle contestant entry forms. I paid the fee, signed a paper, consulted with the judges on what would go down, and left to warm up. Jess flew the coop when she saw how many fiddlers were back of the stage, all playing something different. She went and found a seat at the front of the stage and sat with a rather terrified look. She was probably thinking something along the lines of, "This? For an entire two hours? How did Allie talk me into this?"

Well, to cut a long story short, [because I'm tired and sleepy at it's 11:44pm, the day after the fiddle contest] I got 3rd in my teen division, 1st in the open division, and grand champion for over-all performance.

I was quite excited when they handed me that trophy, but somehow the visions of it on my shelf in my room went kaput when they handed me $500 cash. In fact, I believe my eyes turned a peculiar shade of green.

Good day.
~Allie