Tennessen Weil mile by mile: Semi-Epic Road Trip: Days 4

Day 4: Columbus Ohio State Fair

Memories:

Therese: Amazing Coffee at Fox in the Snow

Grace: Mom didn't bring back pastries for anyone yet raved about them

Danny: The eye infection began - and coincidentally Danny saw a furry brown cow that no one else saw.

Gordon: Fine Arts Building was sweltering

By the morning of the fair, it was becoming apparent that our big Columbus memories would probably have very little to do with the Fair. It was nice that it was so close, we didn't have to get up early in the hopes of finding a good parking spot. I even had time to drive to an amazing coffee place, The Fox in the Snow. The pastries were out of this world, but I refrained from picking anything up since we were going to eat our hearts out at the fair. My latte was excellent and I also picked up coffee for our pet sitters.

Off we went to the fair a little before noon. I made banana chocolate chip muffins which were not quite as good as the pastries I saw earlier but no doubt healthier.

It was a pretty hot day and after a long sweaty walk to the fair grounds we grabbed our first, and probably only memorable, food. Biscuit breakfast sandwiches for Gordon and Danny and peach and apple turnovers for Grace and me.

First fair food with a root beer float chaser

It quickly became apparent that while there was a lot of crazy food on sticks here, the vast majority of it was carnival food truck fare and not at all original. One exception to this was the deep fried olives: excellent!

Olives good. Heat bad.

Near the entrance of the fair was an air conditioned vendor building. Little did we know it was the only air conditioned building at the fair. We wandered around looking at vendors trying to cool off. We grabbed a bunch of free stuff including a hand towel from the Coast Guard which will factor in shortly. Grace bought some nail polish that comes in sheets that adhere to the nail. The sales person did the application and they turned out really well. They are holding up even after several days.

I had it in my mind that I wanted to see the famous butter cow. It took some meandering but we finally arrived at the dairy building. The cow was actually a butter tableau made of something like 1,600 pounds of butter: all expired so no waste here. It was cool, but didn't grab me like I thought it would. Next we headed to the fine arts building which had some really nice artwork but alas, no photos allowed. It was not air conditioned.

Yes - it's all butter

All butter all the time.

As we started to head out, it began to rain. Then it began to pour. Everyone and their brother headed for shelter. We ended up back in the air conditioned vendor building. We grabbed a very disappointing bite to eat to pass the time. Then off we trudged, back to our B&B.

Everyone was tired, no one wanted to make any decisions. We knew we wanted to go to the fabulous book store again and also to an intriguing ice cream place. By the time we figured out where we would eat and when we would have ice cream, we were running out of time.

Meanwhile, Danny's eye was really starting to itch and was overall, thoroughly gross.

We ate at a German Restaurant in the German Village. I wanted something light which is pretty impossible at such a place. I had a spaetzle chicken salad. This seemed to be 1/4 cup of spaetzle, much cubed chicken and a bag of ice berg lettuce. Ugh.

Despite the heavy food, German Village was a delight to walk through. Even the Queen seems to be happy there.

Queen waves hello to celebrate her jubilee

Gordon and Danny dropped Grace and me off at the bookstore while they ran to CVS to find various eye drops for Danny.

Beautiful courtyard of the bookstore

After that we went to the rolled ice cream place. It was pretty fabulous. It was in the Short North area of Columbus which is a super busy hip/happening night spot with lots of cool looking restaurants and clubs.

Finally happy and totally full, we headed home to sleep off our food coma.