We decided that this would be a great afternoon killer, and it was. And apparently it wiped us out because we both came home and took a 2 hour nap. Anyway...
One of these days, I'm going to learn how to write down and follow directions. We wound up at the entrance of the Great Dismal Swamp again; but if you remember, I said we were going through a peanut farmer's field? It wasn't peanuts! Those pretty pink and white flowers were COTTON! I'd never seen cotton on the bush.
Can't see it? Here:
Cool! I was probably more excited than I ought to be about fluffy plant matter.
We rolled down the road to where the actual entrance was, and paid for our parking (clearly, Suffolk makes most of the money on this thing at the parking lot, $10). I knew this could be fun when I saw:
You could buy a ride on this beast. Ooh yeah. We could suddenly taste the promise of Mullets in the air.
We walked on in and headed for the commercial tent. If you were incorporated, you could have a table in this tent. What found really ... different... was that there were at least three different churches represented in there. Ok. Walk on by. We headed over to the arts and crafts tent, and I don't think that Tom could get out of there fast enough when he saw the beer-can-wind-mobiles. Ok, admittedly, they weren't just beer cans (and I really thought that the Natty Light would go with the living room!) but still. I guess you really can't blame him for running.
We meandered down the midway to the rides at the other. There weren't many of them, but they were the good kind. Tom, however, had spotted something else he was more interested in.
Read the sign. It was NOT all they had to offer. Not by a long shot. If you could batter it, slam it on a stick and shove it in hot oil, they would. And did. Tom chose the Deep Fried Twinkie.
He said was a lot like a donut. I really wasn't interested in finding out, truth be told. It was all his. But, while he was enjoying his Twikie, we spotted the following class:
You think that this doesn't exist. But it does. There are people who still have confederate flags on their cars and trucks and still fly the damn thing. They will stand there and yell at you at that it's heritage. Heritage my right buttcheek-- but I'm going to stay off the soap box. She was just as classy as you can imagine, too.
But aside from that crap, we also found:
Yes, the original Mr. Peanut. One of the few signs that this was actually a peanut festival, and not just a county fair. As we walked along, we came to the Peanut Butter Sculpture Contest--
Gotta tell you, this contest smelled mighty fine, yes indeedy. I could have stood there and sniffed the air for hours, until we moved to the next table.
Ah. Well. Ahem. Yes, let's just move right along, shall we?
It didn't get better.
Oh boy. It's the Mr. Peanut Car. The Nutmobile.
Yup. Nutmobile.
Time to move on. Except at this point there wasn't much left to the Peanut Festival. We were just about back where we started when we finally found the one and only tent that was selling actual peanut product. Raw Viginia and redskin peanuts. Cooked. Roasted. Peanut butter. Other kinds of nuts. One tent. That was it. Not one other tent selling anything to do with nuts, at all.
So, it was time to go. We had cased the whole place and were back by our entrance. It was starting to rain much harder and it was time. We walked back out to the car and I commented to Tom, "It's kinda like a lame version of the Meadowlands Fair." Which, if you've ever been to the Meadowlands fair (for 4 or 5 frickin' nights in a row), you know it's hard to beat.
We got home as assessed our haul for the outing.
1- jar peanut butter
1- container honey roasted nuts
1- Pepsi cup full of whole roasted peanuts, compliments of The Peanut himself
1- note pad, Suffolk County Schools
1- pencil, Suffolk County Schools
1- letter opener
Of all these things, I was most excited about the damn letter opener. I've been trying to find one for a while.
And not one mullet to be seen, anywhere.
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