Our county fair opened last week: an opportunity to eat unhealthy food and throw up on whirling, jolting rides. My kind of event. Monday evening we drove out to the fairgrounds behind the new presidencia, just off the Dr. Mora road.

The fair is the best entertainment deal in town. Parking costs $10 pesos; admission is $25. All the rides are free.

The machines can be charitably described well-used. The rides shake and judder. Bearings howl. Holes in seats dig into your butt. What do you want for free? We ride them anyway. They're just too much fun.
Electricity powering the rides runs through cables laid on the ground. We try not to trip over the 220 volt lines leading to the Ferris wheel.
Check out the rat's nest leading from the breaker box. The entire network was made by twisting bunches of wires together and wrapping a layer of electrical tape around the joins.

The rides are reminiscent of those I rode as a teenager at Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey. Everything is kind of loose, leading to an unpredictable, lurching, thrilling experience.
Lines for the roller coaster are long. There's only one car—just four people can ride at a time.

We may choose between two levels of bumper cars—one for kiddies, and a pro driver version. The aggressive look of this driver signals the presence of a born killer. Best to wait til he's gone.

Faulty contacts beneath the cars emit sparks and a reek of ozone.
Laura and I ride the Hurricane. I hold a Nikon SLR in my hand, hoping to get some nice blurry shots of carnival lights. As the ride revs up, centrifugal force threatens to tear the camera out of my hand. When we return to Earth, my arm aches from hanging on to it.

Weak personal liability laws mean Mexican kids get better rides—like hanging from a trolley that rolls along a taut cable. No adults allowed on this one.

Nor are adults allowed on the trampoline. A barefoot kid bounces on a surface twenty feet in the air, having the best time ever.

Security is tight. Males 16 to 40 years old are frisked before being granted entry. Mounted patrols range the parking lot. Policemen, sharp in desert camos, keep an eye on things inside the gates.

Vendors sell cheap stuff. Here's a Zen moment: this place sells socks behind a TV blaring Korean popular music.

No man can leave the midway without winning his girl a prize. I pay $20 pesos for three darts. Successfully popping three balloons (it's impossible to miss) I get Laura a $10 peso stuffed green frog. Makes her happy. She'll give it to one-year-old Eric down the street.

Rides, games—what else is the fair about? Food! It's about pan de feria—fair bread. Competition is fierce: a dozen vendors sell it. They tear samples off loaves and thrust them into our hands, trying to obligate us.

Pan de feria appears to be a big deal, given all the hype and the sheer amount of it on offer. But I wasn't impressed. It tasted like—well—bread. Stale bread. It might as well have been made in the Bimbo factory at Matehuala last April.
Fortunately we had many more gustatory options—like my favorite, tacos al pastor. Several vendors spit-roasted layers of marinated pork in vertical broilers. Note the traditional pineapple atop the smaller spit. The carver adds a little chunk of fresh pineapple to your serving with a practiced flick of his knife.

Early in the evening, everybody is preparing food for the crowds soon to arrive. A petulant teenager has been pressed into KP duty.

Foods exotic to gringo tastes provide opportunities to expand culinary horizons. "Ricos tacos de tripas" reads a sign. A skull, not a sign, advertises tacos de cabeza.

If such foods put you off, there's plenty of hot dogs and hamburgers available. Thirty years ago they tempted me. Today I get angina pains just looking at them.

This one's new to me: potato chips on a stick. A single spiral cut potato is threaded onto a wooden stick and deep fried. No bag needed.

Fresas con chantilly—strawberries and whipped cream—sound appealing to me. I envision a paper cup overflowing with fresh, dew-picked strawberries topped with thick hand-beaten cream.
I wake up the vendor. ("Why am I the only customer" I should ask, but don't.) From a freezer, he digs up one of those milk cartons like the ones hanging overhead. He bashes it on the counter to break up the congealed glob of frozen strawberries within. Then with a large knife, he stabs into a container of frozen Cool Whip, scooping the few tiny chunks he's able to free up into the carton.
I throw mine away. Fortunately a guy across the way is making churros. Deep-fried batter rolled in sugar rectifies any disappointment.
Oh yeah. County fairs are supposed to be about agriculture. We don't see any 4-H-ers showing prizewinning lambs, nor any blue ribbon canned preserves. A few large commercial ranches exhibit livestock, that's all. Nobody seems excited about it.

Tens of thousands of people will visit this fair. The vast majority of them don't come to see domestic animals. They come to have a good time. And they will.

Growing up, midways were magical places. Lights, music, the calls of the barkers created a whole new world around me. I began innocently riding merry-go-rounds, advanced to the big coasters, and graduated to the tunnel of love.
If you live here, you could suspend all judgment, drop your inhibitions, and go. The experience will take years off you. The county fair will be open through this weekend.