Our Oregon Trails: CityFair

I know what you're thinking: "Two posts, in one night?" I finally feel like writing again! Sorry for the last few posts that were more of a listing of what we did. The dog park one and this one should be more interesting to read.

The Rose Festival takes place during most of the summer in Portland. I didn't realize it, but Portland is known as the City of Roses or Rose City. For three weekends, they have a fair downtown called CityFair. Saturday, they also had a parade so we ventured downtown to check it out. We decided not to actually watch the parade because it's from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and people camp out 24 hours in advance to save spots. We didn't think we'd find a place to watch.

We went to the fair and Brandt had a huge corn dog and I got a strawberry, banana, nutella crepe. We walked around and weren't all that impressed. They had an exotic animal viewing area that was packed. The cages were small and it reminded me of how they used to exhibit animals at the turn of the century (not this last one, but 1800-1900s). I think I saw a sign about them being rescues but I can't imagine they enjoy all of the noise, crowds, and extreme heat. They had a place where you could have your picture taken with various animals, including a baby tiger. It was only $10 and would have been awesome to hold a baby tiger but the line was long. I also hope they use more than one tiger because I'm sure the little guys get overwhelmed doing that all day.

The midway had a lot of rides. I saw several that are always at the Cowley County Fair and many more. There were games, prizes, and many running children. There weren't any animal showings since it wasn't a county fair but I was disappointed because they didn't even have local artists or 4H there. It was dusty and hot, so once we walked the entire length, we left. I noticed that right as the fair ended, there was a market, so we headed that way.

I loved the Saturday Market! It had numerous vendors and crafty things. We didn't get to see everything so I'm going back next Saturday. Brandt was a good sport and walked along the stalls with me but he didn't enjoy it near as much as I did. I stopped and got my first boba tea then we headed to find the floats. They were supposed to be on display somewhere starting at 3 p.m. but we couldn't find them.

After walking most of the way back to where we started, I asked an event employee. Turns out they had closed down the street and the floats were parked there. We'd been walking on the wrong side! We took a short cut across the fair and on our right, were the floats. The only floats I've ever seen were the ones we made for homecoming back home. These were much more impressive. They were filled with flowers and were very well made. I could see straps where the people were tied in while the float was moving. No such thing existed on our floats! From what I could tell, nothing is painted, other than maybe the floor. I was able to get close to one and they had used rice for the white sections. I was impressed at the amount of work it must have taken and how nice the end products looked.