Aiee!

[bladespark]

It's funny how the internet and real life tend to become separate little universes. When I'm online I tend to mostly think about what's going on online, like my continuing invasion of emoteens. (Gone from wtf to silly to hilarious, but will probably be boring long before they give up and go.) But in addition to battling the emo hordes yesterday, I also went to the fair!

This area has two fairs, one is the Country Fair, and one is the County Fair. The Country Fair is quite possibly the world's biggest hippie fest, and I love it and want to try and be a vendor there next year. The County Fair is pretty much what you think of whe you think of a fair. Hot dogs and cotton candy, rides that make you sick, ribbons being awarded to animals, art competitions where more quilts are entered than paintings, etc. It was quite fun. I got domiance challenged by a young Friesian stallion. (He walked up to me and nosed me right in the chest, thinking I was going to back away. I pushed back on his nose and he didn't seem to know what to make of that. I'm curious what he would have done next, but the gal who had him on a lead pulled him away right after that.) I also discovered that in this northen land the thing I know as giant scones or Navajo fry bread goes by "elephant ears" and has cinnamon on it rather than honey, but is still good. I suppose there's no point in trying to call it Navajo anything when you're probably more than a thousand miles from the nearest Navajos.

Anyhow, JJ's father had agreed (because he is a sadist, I swear) to pay for JJ and I to ride the giant slingshot. Most similar rides I've seen have been giant swings, you get strapped in and pulled back, and then you swing on an arc several hundred feet long. This had the same two giant poles, but they strap you into a seat held between two giant bungee cords, wind up a huge bank of springs, and then let them go, flinging you into the air a few hundred feet instead.

Now I have been on rides where you get free fall. The big Tower Of Terror type are really fun. But that is because when you're in free fall you can feel that you are just falling down a guided course, there is still a sense of something solid holding you in place.

On this particular ride there is nothing solid. When you reach the top of the arc and start to fall, you are falling. Tumbling, even.

That is, honestly, quite possibly my worst nightmare. I am terrified of heights. Falling like that, with a sense of really falling, where even though your forebrain knows you're safe, every single bit of your hindbrain knows you are going to die, is really freaking scary. I was screaming real screams, not "eeeee, this is exciting!" screams but "I am going to actually die!" screams.

I have this weird thing about challenging fears though. It's why I hiked Angel's Landing for my 16th birthday, and it's why I'll probably ride the slingshot thing again next year if it's there. That and JJ and his dad would both never let me live it down if I didn't.

Comments

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

We also call them 'elephant ears' or (rarely) 'beaver tails'. Classic carny food - deep fried and then doused with sugar :P

That slingshot ride is freaken *scary*. You'll never catch me on it but I like to watch it go up in a morbid fascination kind of way.

[lanabananaotter.livejournal.com]

Ha! I scream on EVERY ride like I'm going to die... except the tilt-a-whirl for some reason. I could go on that all day.

I think it's the diffrence in being able to control whether you go fast or not.

I hate rides. :(

[silveradept]

If you like elephant ears, which, to me, are light, relatively fluffy things, you should try their cousins, funnel cakes, which are the same sort of process, but a bit more dense and very sugar-topped. Still extraordinarily good, and like the elephant ears, best eaten just after the point where they cool down enough to be handled.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Funnel cakes generally cost four times what elephant ears do. So I've never bothered to try them, since I don't feel like getting ripped off.

[silveradept]

Ooog. Yeah, that's definitely a rip-off to have the funnel cakes more expensive than the elephant ears. They are good, but if someone's trying to get an arm and a leg for them, then you can wait until you find a place that does them at an affordable price.

[emirasan.livejournal.com]

Make funnel cakes at home if you want to try them. It's ridiculously easy. All you need is thin pancake batter (not water thin, but thinner than pancakes), a small funnel and powdered sugar. Pour the mix through the funnel while moving it in random directions over a pot or fry cooker full of hot oil. Let the cake turn golden brown, scoop it out and shake on the desired amount of powdered sugar and there you have a funnel cake. Made them with my mom a lot when we got to craving them.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Heh.

That makes the respective pricing of the two things even siller. I've made fry bread before, and it's a bit of a process, as it's a proper yeast dough.

[emirasan.livejournal.com]

Lol, yep indeed it does.

[graydown.livejournal.com]

They have one of those slingshot rides at the Kansas state fair, too! You can hear the screams for blocks away. I never tried it -- too expensive.

I did try the human-powered version at the local Renaissance festival, though. They strap you into a two-story slingshot that stands over a giant trampoline. Then, a big burly guy grabs your legs and pulls you down so you go zinging off into the air. They do it over and over until your time is up.

I don't usually scream. That is to say, I've screamed twice in my recent memory. That ride was one of them. You're spot on about the hindbrain's reaction... That was pure monkey-falling-from-the-tree terror.