Today we crossed the boarder, much quicker now we have a green card, into the states to go to the Washington North East County Fair at Lynden. On crossing the border you could see how mild the spring had been by the amount of snow on top of Mount Baker. We parked away for the grounds as they had a free shuttle bus to the gates. Molly and Tracy were very excited as the shuttle arrived as it was a yellow school bus.
Once inside the fair we split from Bill and Ed so we could look around at our own pace but meet up for lunch. We first looked around the trade stalls, they were selling washing machines, individual saunas, gutter covers and everything you can imagine right through to tractor insurance. Molly was given some lollipops for spinning a wheel plus a glow stick and a lucky marble. Other stalls were selling the usual garden chairs and tie dye t-shirts.
The thing we like most is the community involvement with a church youth group running the coffee bar ( you really wouldn't know the difference to Starbucks) and kids showing their Lego building or a collection of stuffed toys, and not being judged on the size of the collection but how it's displayed.
Next we looked around the cows and horses both being washed and groomed by their young keepers. One cow, about to calf, had given 4800 gallons of milk last year. Molly had a go at milking a dummy cow and milked one US cup in 30 seconds.
After looking around the fruit, veg, flowers and farm machines we went to a stage area to see a guy called Matt Baker. He put on a great show of juggling and comedy with lots of audience interaction.
We met up with Bill and Ed but with so much greasy food for sale we didn't have much to eat ( we did have elephant ears).
In the afternoon we saw the goats and alpacas before Molly went on a hand gliding fairground ride.
On the way home we went to Jakes Western Grill for ribs and then Molly wanted DQ so we went back to Abbotsford for desert.