The Marion County Fair

Last week was the Baxter County fair. Jake was working crazy long hours, though, and we didn't manage to make it to the fair until after 7 pm on the last night. And, of course, as we are pulling out of the driveway it starts to sprinkle. Spence got to ride 2 rides and Jake and I got to eat some fair food before it started raining enough that we decided to leave. It was about as much fun as you can have in roughly 20 minutes.

Jake called yesterday to say the Marion County fair was going on this weekend, did I want to go? Marion County is sparsely populated and the fair was to take place in Yellville, which is about 20 minutes away, but I figured the fair would be at least halfway decent if the Baxter County fair was decent.

Wrong.

When we arrived at the fairgrounds, we saw horses. Lots of horses. Now, I'm not opposed to the equine portion of any fair, and goodness knows my child loves the livestock, but this was different. There were no rides, no game booths, no vendors selling funnel cakes or corn dogs. Beyond the horses you could see about 5 big, inflatable jump houses (or so I call them) and that was it. All. Finito. Horses and jump houses.

Needless to say, at this point I was happy that Spencer had fallen asleep in the backseat. This fair was LAME and I didn't want to waste what little cash I brought on it. A moment of spontaneity seized me and I turned to Jake and said, "Let's go to Branson." He said, "We need to go get some gas."

We very rarely do things on a whim, so when he obliged me I was thrilled. I hadn't been to Branson since I was a little girl (and it turns out Jake hadn't been in forever either) and it is not what I remember.

We went with the intention of eating at Joe's Crab Shack. They've been running commercials here forever and my mouth waters at the sight of their crab legs, but the closest one is up in Branson. As we were trying to figure out where it was, Jake mentioned Greek food and we had an immediate change of plans. One of the biggest things we miss about living in the Little Rock area is going out for Greek food, so now that we were among civilization, we were certain to find some.

Jake found a review on his iPhone for a place called Zoey's and we set off to find it.

It was very "hole in the wall"-ish. It stood alone, on a dark road, away from the Branson strip. But we walked in to be met with the wonderful smell of wonderful food.

We almost choked when we saw the price tags, but decided to stay and eat anyway. Jake got the moussaka, I got a roasted leg of lamb, and Spencer got the kid's spaghetti. And, man, YUMMY! Well worth the $60 (*choke*) price tag. It wasn't the Greek food we were used to, which is mainly Greek salads and gyros, but I think it was much more authentic Mediterranean food.

Afterwards we told Spencer we'd go play games, so we made the slow trek back up the strip to a kiddie ride place. Which, of course, was closed (it was 8:30!). We went across the way to the go-kart place, very nervously, because we'd promised Spencer we would do something fun and I was almost certain he'd be too small to ride with daddy on a go-kart.

I was wrong. Thank goodness. One hour and $20.50 later, Spencer and Jake were happy campers, which made me a happy camper, so we left. We swung by Coldstone Creamery on the way to Hwy. 65 and grabbed some ice cream and then were on our way home.

It was the most fun I've had with my boys in a while.