The "E" is For Enjoyable

 

Vermont building at The Big E (@TheBigEFair on X)

I chose to honor tradition and be good to myself today.

While we're watching costs during this time, I'm being very cautious about everything.

That being said, Sean and I went to The Big E today. The event is a large fair that I went to annually for roughly 20 years. But as life changed I backed away from it. Every fall I'd glance towards it, decide it wasn't something I needed to do, and figured that part of my life might be over.

Then Sean and I went a few years ago and the magic was still there. Plus, Sean and I do things our way.

We go, do what we want, and leave. We don't tend to linger.

While the fair is huge, we were in and out in just over three hours. 

We are fairly predictable in our routine. We go to the state houses, pick up maple cream cones in Vermont, look at everything, and think about what we want to come back to.

Then we walk the rest of the fair.

Some years, things grab us. Some years, they just don't. This was a year where we were content to just walk.

And walk. 

We saw everything.

We grabbed food here and there, with a bacon cheeseburger on a waffle being a big winner outside the Massachusetts house. We grabbed cider donuts in Vermont and he had a whoopie pie in Maine.

And, of course, the maple cones in Vermont. This is when Sean normally makes fun of my love of maple. He also makes fun of my habit of picking up road maps and other literature, which I had traditionally put in a backpack I carried all day.

Today, I did not carry one. I allowed myself exactly one map, from Maine. Because I do love that state.

Each New England state has its own state house and they are, in fact, extensions of their state or commonwealth. In Connecticut, for instance, the beer stand couldn't open until 11 a.m.

So, if we were ranking each of the houses for the content of each, I'm guessing we'd go like this:

- Vermont (maple, Ben & Jerry's, though points lost because the wood-fired pizza we used to eat is gone)

- Massachusetts (good cross-section of items, though points deducted for Boston sports)

- Maine (the Maine potato and the whoopie pies)

- Rhode Island (a solid selection of seafood items, Del's lemonade, and a candy stand)

- New Hampshire (it's sort of a house of "meh")

- Connecticut (it's a train wreck, quite honestly, plus their desperate need for attention -- see picture)

Yeah. This.
Maybe spend money on fixing roads and not on pithy signs?

They're all great to walk through but it's certainly a variety of wares to purchase, some displays to look at, and a whole lot of foot traffic.

We did nothing extravagant. We gassed up the car, paid for parking and admission, got our food, and made a grocery store stop on the way home.

So, for what it's worth, it was a reasonable day. But it also gave us a chance to walk around and just talk. He is always playing his Pokémon GO game and I'm a willing participant in helping him however possible, even if normally by walking to a certain place. I understand none of it but I try to help.

The day also allowed me some time to check out and think a bit. It will be a busy week.

And, as for the ride home, allow me to once again say that Connecticut can afford signs that trumpet things unnecessarily, but can't do anything about the roads in the state. It should not have taken us nearly three hours to get home from just outside Springfield, MA.

I-95. Merritt Parkway. Wilbur Cross Parkway. I-84. I-91. It doesn't matter. All had some form of slowdown.

This is in addition to the 45 minutes to drive the last mile to where we parked for the fair.

That's more than enough.

But if the fates allow, we'll do it all over again next year.