Rosie slept through Big Tex. We pushed the stroller right up to his boots around 1:30 on Saturday, Matt lined the boys up for the picture, the big voice boomed "Howdy, folks" over the crowd, and our two-year-old didn't even twitch. She's in the photo with her mouth open and one sock missing. That was our day at the State Fair of Texas, and for five people it came to $140.
We don't go every year. The fair is the kind of outing where money disappears in small amounts, a coupon here and a lemonade there, and you get home not quite sure where $250 went. So this year I set the number before we left, wrote it at the bottom of the paper plan on the fridge, and kept a running total in my phone like it was a catering invoice.
Tickets and parking, settled before we left
I bought tickets online the Sunday before. Advance tickets cost less than the gate, and on an October Saturday the ticket lines are long enough to burn through a toddler's good mood before you're even inside. Wyatt is ten and well past the height line for a kid ticket now, so we paid for three adults plus a child ticket for Eli. Rosie got in free. That was $71.
Parking was $20 in an official lot close to the gate. There are cheaper yards and side lots if you're willing to walk, and the year Wyatt was four we saved a few dollars that way, then carried a sleeping preschooler and a cooler what felt like a mile back to the van in 90 degrees. Matt still brings it up. I'll pay the $20.
Lunch in the van, then exactly one corny dog each
The biggest thing that kept us on budget was lunch. I packed it Friday night while the boys were in the bath: turkey and cheese sandwiches on Aldi wheat bread, a peanut butter and jelly for Eli cut into squares, apple slices, a family bag of Goldfish, string cheese and five water bottles I'd frozen overnight. We pulled in a little before 11 and ate in the van with the sliding doors open, and the water was still slushy. It felt early for lunch until we walked in and saw the lines.
Food and drink at the fair runs on coupons, which you buy at booths around the grounds. I bought $49 worth and told everyone that was the whole food budget for the day. It covered four corny dogs (Rosie gnawed on the end of mine) and one enormous fresh lemonade that got passed around until it was just ice. Eli ate his corny dog with no mustard and asked for a second one at 2 o'clock. The answer was no, and there were Goldfish in the stroller basket.
The rides were the other place the day could have gotten expensive. The midway takes coupons too, and a few rides for two boys would have doubled what we spent on food. We told them in the van that morning: no rides this year, and the trade is a corny dog each and as long as they wanted at the car show. Wyatt negotiated anyway. He lost, but politely.
The car show, the barns and the stroller nap
Matt and Wyatt could have stayed in the car show all day. Matt sat in three new trucks he has no intention of buying and came out saying his 2016 F-150 has "plenty of life left," which is what he says every time. Wyatt took about forty pictures of a pickup with tires taller than Rosie.
Eli wanted animals, so the livestock barns were his. He stood at one goat pen for ten minutes straight and named every goat in it. Somewhere in the second barn Rosie gave up, and she slept in the stroller from about 12:45 until we were back at the van, straight through Big Tex, a high school marching band and Wyatt dropping a water bottle on the stroller canopy.
It hit 89 degrees by midafternoon. My miss for the day: I put sunscreen on everyone in the van at 11 and then left the bottle on the front seat. By 3 o'clock Eli's ears and the back of Matt's neck were pink. Next year the sunscreen lives in the stroller basket with the backup diapers.
How the $140 broke down
- Tickets, bought online ahead: $71
- Parking: $20
- Food and drink coupons: $49
- Packed lunch and frozen water: already counted in the week's groceries
That's $140 for five, or $28 a person, for about five hours at the fair. Some year we'll go bigger and let the boys ride a few things. This year the lemonade, the corny dogs, the goats and Big Tex were plenty, and nobody cried on the walk out, which at the fair with three kids counts as a win.
Rosie woke up as I buckled her into her car seat, looked around the parking lot and asked, very seriously, where the big man went. She asked again at dinner, and twice more at bath time.
