Walkabout on Wheels

Friday morning, we were in shock to find on the internet the news that Steven Jones had been placed on academic leave the same day we visited him at Brigham Young University. I guess that they thought his September 11 research and notoriety was too much for the school to handle. Given that he was teaching only one class in introductory physics that semester, I find it hard to believe that they thought he was taking too much time away from his classes. I was rather dismayed, in horror at the thought that our visit might have been the last straw for the university. Maybe it was, most likely it wasn't. When the government is a major source of funding for any endeavor, science departments at major universities, for example, you have to go with the flow or lose the cash flow. It made me think that America is not as free as it seems. Anyway, Dr. Jones, if you were booted because of our crashing your office hours, my deepest apologies.

In preparation for leaving Utah and heading to Tahoe, we went to the grocery store and had a relaxing day at the campground. But at night, we had to go check out the Utah State Fair. We had already ignored the Kentucky State Fair, and a few others on our trip. So it was really a must. We wouldn't have gone, because, really, a fair is a fair, but they were having a rodeo too!

Here is a picture of the main entrance to the carnival part of the fair. Flashy, eh? I wonder if this is the one Manny, my older brother, worked. Anyway, we ignored the midway at first so we could check out the rodeo. It was perfect timing! We got there just in time for bull riding! Yeeehaa! We watched for about 10 riders. Two of them lasted until the buzzer. It was a lot of fun, not because of any major injuries, just fun. The commentators made really stupid jokes between riders, such as: "My wife's like a record player. She's 33 45 78." Ar ar ar.

After that we ate dinner there. We didn't have any true fair food, meaning nothing fried or on a stick. Gyros and pizza were close enough. Of course, after we had that we walked by a really delicious-looking roasted chicken stand, but, oh, well. It had gotten chilly, so Zorah borrowed my sweater. In truth, there really wasn't that much to see at the fair. I wanted to go back to the bullriding, personally, but we had fun walking around. Zorah really wanted to go in this funhouse, so we bought some tickets and walked through with her. At one point, however, there was a metal plate that triggered a really loud noise when stepped on. It totally freaked her out and made her cry, so we had to carry her away from the place in a hurry.