State fair of Texas 2018

Last Friday, Todd and I had the day off because we were supposed to be going out of town for a quick trip to New Orleans.  That got cancelled and so we took advantage of the beautiful day and went to the State Fair of Texas.  We had not been in a few years and we both were excited to go again.  We got there right around lunch time and so the very first thing we did was go get in line in one of the Fletcher corn dog stands. Now I am kinda funny about traditions. I HAVE to get mine from the stand that is directly in front of Big Tex.  I’ve ALWAYS got my corny dog there even though there are dozens of other stands that have them.  I also will only eat mine with mustard- No ketchup!!

We walked around most all of the exhibit buildings and our favorite are the car shows to see all the new models, and they the buildings are air-conditioned . It was really hot that day in the 90’s and super humid.  We tried a fried Reeses peanut butter cup with ice cream as our quirky fried food. They had it all!! Fried lobster, fried red velvet cupcake, fried chicken fried bacon, you name it- it was there fried on a stick.

We also HAVE to ride the Texas Star Ferris wheel.  Its one of the tallest in the US and it’s a great view of the city .  Last week was also our huge rivalry college football weekend for Texas and OU. The Red River Rivalry.  There was lots going on and they were setting up the FOX News booth in prep for the next days game.  Texas won the game and man was it good!! Won by a field goal in the last 9 seconds of the game.

It’s always such a good time and we enjoyed spending the day together with no rush and nowhere else we had to be.

this is made of butter and its huge

fried reeses with ice cream

Memory triggers- flashbacks

I'm sitting here at work snacking on some smoked almonds and it's funny how a smell, taste , sound or sight can immediately take you to back in time to memory. Just silly but tasty almonds took me to Georgetown, Colorado when I was  7 or 8 yrs old, to the Red Ram Inn with my daddy.  My dad lived there for a few years and that was my first flight on an airplane from Dallas to Denver and I flew alone. Back then , you would have a flight attendant assigned to you to board with you and to see you off the plane. Dads friend was the bartender at Red Ram and we were there often to eat dinner. Hey we're talking the 70's and a single dad.  Anyways, they had a dispenser on the bar that was filled with the smoked almonds. For a quarter, you would get a hand full of almonds. I was the official almond getter once I discovered this.  I never in my life ate so many smoked almonds in a months time. 

I will ALWAYS associate smoked almonds with the Red Ram. 

Funny side note: my mom ended up living in Georgetown 20 years later for a short time.  Both parents living in the same small town at different times is so weird to me. 

When mom was pregnant with my little brother Jeremy, she craved ice cream floats made with strawberry crush soda.  It HAD to be Crush brand and my sweet grandpa would drop off cases of the soda every week for her.  So now I can't see a can of Crush ( orange, grape, etc) without thinking of mom pouring it over bluebell vanilla ice cream. 

The little creamer packets that you see jn a bowl at IHOP or Denny's , those take me to a time my Poppy let me open up at least a dozen of those at a small cafe and drink the cream from them. I was really young then probably around 6 or 7. My sweet grandpa spoiled me just a little.

To this day I am not a fan of whipped cream or cool whip from a bowl or can.  Again I was just a little girl and my great aunt was babysitting me. She let me eat cool whip out of the bowl and then also spray the whipped cream in my mouth from a can. I got soooo sick and have avoided it ever since. 

Corny dogs take me to our Texas State Fair and it has to be Fletcher's . 

There are many many many more examples of my transports in time but I only time right now to name these few. 

Do you have any specific vivid memories that something like an almond takes you to?