Saturday, October 1, 2011

Exploring Downtown Monroe and Ark-La-Miss Fair and Livestock Show

Dustin and I had a fun day today.  We decided to go explore downtown and walk along the river.  Downtown wasn't as exciting I was hoping it to be, unless we were just in the wrong area or something.  The riverwalk was super pretty, though!  I remembered to take lots of pictures today!



There's this pretty river-walk area in downtown Monroe (by the way, for clarification, West Monroe is on one side of the river, Monroe on the other).  It's such a pretty, relaxing place, and you can see TONS of turtles playing in the water.  I can't wait to bring the boys here.  And I hear they decorate this all pretty at Christmas time.  I can't wait!! 

Bu on the river.

Pretty building.

That was pretty much our extent downtown.  Then we headed to the local art gallery, Masur Museum of Art.

 

It's in a historical home, which is absolutely gorgeous.  I wanted to take more pictures inside, but you know how those art gallery folk are...they don't like you taking pictures. ;)

This is the view from the back of the museum.  It sits right on the river (obviously...).  Pretty!



After our sophisticated visit to the art museum, we decided to head down the the Ark-La-Miss Fair and Livestock Show and get our fair share of gluttony.  The fair itself was great.  Lots of fun rides and LOTS of good food.  We got some BBQ, potato salad, and baked beans for lunch (how could we not?) and then we got this for dessert:


Now, I haven't really been to any fairs lately, so maybe they've been doing this for a while and I was  just not aware.  But they add TOPPINGS to the funnel cakes.  All sorts of toppings.  Strawberries, Banana Cream, Milkyway, Reese's, Cinnamon, Chocolate, Caramel (are you drooling yet?), and Bavarian Cream, which is what we got.  It was heaven.  Complete glutton heaven.  Sadly, we were unable to finish the entire thing.  I think we got a little over half way done and realized that we would be fat terrible people if we ate any more. ;)  But to whoever thought of putting Bavarian Cream on a funnel cake, I thank you.  You are brilliant.

Then we headed in to the exhibit hall/petting zoo.  We had SOOO much fun!  When we got up this morning, we had no idea we'd hold an alligator by the time the day's through.

They had typical fair animals - donkies, ponies, goats, ducks, piggies, rabbits, chicken and chicks, an emu...  But this guy was definitely the star of the show.


He was only about four feet long and 50 pounds, but still...he's an alligator.  He's about five years old and due to getting hit by a car when he was a baby, he won't get much bigger.  This little guy was there, too.


He's about a year old, and when full grown, will be about 13 feet long and weigh almost a ton.  Blows. My. Mind.  He was super cute, though!


We were chatting with the people working, and though only the little one is supposed to be held, they said we could hold the bigger one if we wanted (because we're awesome like that).  But we had to wait for the little petting area to clear out and all the kids to leave.  I wasn't brave enough.  He may not be that big, but he squirms a lot and is super strong.  But Dustin decided to take on the challenge.


He felt like a man...

I also got to hold a snake.  I've always loved snakes.  It's so crazy to feel their muscles move when they squirm.  Amazing creature, I say.


I fell in love with these little piglets.
 

They were running crazy all over the pen, and then they both just ran to a little spot and burrowed in next to each other.  Adorable.  There were tons of people around, but they just passed out.  Cute lil piggies.

After visiting our animal kin, we just chilled and listened to some music before heading home.

I'm terrible at taking self-photos, but you get the idea. ;)

And thus concludes our fun day!  We came back to the apartment, took a nice long nap, then grilled some chicken for dinner, and getting ready to cuddle for a movie.  GREAT Saturday!

And I won't brag about how it was in the mid-80's and beautiful all day...but it was... :)

LOVE!


 

No comments:

Post a Comment