The carnie folks have packed up their array of stuffed treasures and dismantled the rides, but your corndog coma may not subside for a few days yet.

I came to Lignite to help hold down the fort while Mom gallivanted around the state fair snapping photos of unsuspecting fairgoers. She had a badge, so it was legal. She also had a few assistants this year as my daughter accompanied her for pack mule services and Craig, a friend of mine from Watertown, SD, tried his hand at the state fair paparazzi gig.

As usual, Sierra had a great time with Grandma and as a reward for her patience and pack muling my mom let her go on a photographic assignment with Craig to the KISS concert. Better him than me as I would rather eat a three-day-old secondhand Twinkie on a stick than go to a rock concert.

Craig likes that sort of music and informed me that Sierra had been properly baptized into rock concert land as she got beer spilled on her, got burned by a cigarette, and can now distinguish between cigarette smoke and a smoke that’s not as legal.

I’m not much for the state fair but I went one day to simmer in my own sweat with more strange people than I guessed would have lived in North Dakota. As the comedian Jeff Foxworthy says, “If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty.’”

My dad is not much for the fair either, but he went as well and drank his usual $30 worth of Tubby’s lemonade and strolled around with Sierra while she was on her break from her photographic assistant duties. Sierra enjoyed her time with Grandpa as well and talked Aunt Amanda into going on a few rides after us elders turned her down. I used to like fair rides but now I can’t even take an underdog on a swing without feeling nauseous.

While Sierra was whooping it up at the North Dakota State Fair poor Jackson was stuck in Orlando doing what he could to have fun at Disney World. He was invited to go along with one of his best friends and their family and like the KISS concert… better them than me. The Flaxton Fair is about as big as I ever needed so unless Mickey and Minnie go on tour and wind up with Sherwin Linton at the Flaxton Fair you won’t see me in a photo with them.

Jackson gets back home this week and has called about once a day while he’s been gone to let us know what he’s up to. He even got to go to see his Yankees play while he was there so I’m sure his camera will be full of interesting eleven-year-old low angle photos. My wife got into the traveling spirit as well and took off for a week in Germany with her sister on Saturday.

So, the last few weeks we’re going to be all over the map, but like Grandpa Ardell always told me, “Travel while you can and see as much as you can because someday your body might quit on you.”

Smart man.