A "Fair-ly" Regular Day

Okay so, the Teton County Fair has been over for two days now but I have just now found time to sit down and write about it. For five days I lived and breathed the Rocky Mountain Ministries food booth and the last two days have given me some semblance of recovery enough that I think I can describe honestly what happened without exhaustion tainting my tale.

So basically, Tuesday was spent getting stuff ready for the fair: cleaning fryers, finding table cloths and decorations, getting coolers and such out etc. Then Wednesday morning the guys headed out early to set up the booth, put in the floor and lights and we followed shortly with the food, tools etc. So set up day was pretty busy for us just setting up but not very busy foodwise. However, the rest of the week was another story. Here is my typical day:

our booth

Get up at 8, get ready (close-toed shoes, hat and clothes that can get greasy and nasty), devotions, breakfast, be in the lodge by 9 or 9:30ish. Then we load trucks and head out to the fair grounds. There, we set up: snocones, deep fryers, BBQ, grill, food stuffs and cash register. About 10:30 Will, kid from the lemonade booth shows up asking why it took us so long to get there, orders a burger or some other such thing which shouldn't be eaten that early in the morning and heads back to his booth. Then we serve the few people who trickle in, try to survive the first round of the terrible guitar duo which performs three times a day, and if it's really slow we do monkey bars on the 2x4s which hold up the ceiling. (We even held a man challenge one day in which we almost split one of the boards...got a nice bruise on my palm from swinging up there but luckily now slivers.) If the slowness continues, ice starts getting thrown and we start eating the first of the deep fried oreos and scones (ugh so nasty but  delish).

Deep fried oreos

Then around 12 the rush begins and everything is chaos for a couple hours. I run cash with either Lisa, Jen, Cally or Holly and we take turns shouting orders, writing them down, grabbing drinks, taking money, directing people here and there. There are scones frying, burgers flying, philly cheese steaks grilling and snocones dripping.

We've got music playing, people shouting, metal clanging on metal as well as whatever act happens to be going on under the big top. I loved it. The noise, the chaos, the smells, the cheery people...it was fantastic. The mid-afternoon lull was always dreaded but we made the most of it with more ice cubes flying, lunch breaks, swing dancing and corn eating. (The booth next to ours sold corn on the cob with all these fantastic toppings. Jen and I went and traded them two cobs for a philly and WOW they were amazing. We were a little hesitant at first to try this odd concoction of corn, mayo, cheese, lemon juice and chili powder but I don't know if I can ever go back now! BEST way to eat corn, seriously!) The dinner rush started about 5:30 and usually goes steady till 8, a couple nights we went past nine! After that, we pack up, while still serving snocones and the occasional philly and hopefully get out of there around 10. Then back at camp we spent about an hour cleaning, preparing stuff for the next day and counting the days profit. Then it's to bed for 8 hours only to rise again and do it all over!

It was seriously one of the funnest weeks ever but also SO exhausting. We all decided that it's the kind of fun you really only want once a year. I mean, it just wouldn't be healthy to do it any more often what with the amount of deep fried food we ate. Ugh, I have never eaten that much grease in my life! We all would return home at night feeling like a deep fryer. I wasn't even that bad compared to those who spent the day over the grill and fryers. Oh, I have to put in a a good word for deep fried Oreos though. I convinced everyone to try them and then we started selling them and they went like CRAZY. By the last day we were also selling potatoes deep fried on a stick which were FANTASTIC as well as treating ourselves to deep fried Snickers which OH MY HEAD ARE SO AMAZING! Anyways, as you can tell, it's a good thing it's over or we would soon all die of heart attacks.

Tater Sticks!!!

Altogether it was a great time full of new experiences, fun fellowship with friends and a cool opportunity to practically serve God. One of the funnest parts was giving firemen and police officers all their food for free as a thank you for their service. Their reactions were always so great.

Anyways, that was super long and I understand if you gave up half way through. But if you read this far, thanks for joining me on this exciting retelling of my crazy week. It was definitely one to remember!