Hillsborough's Hog Day

It was a sweltering Saturday afternoon and I had baby sitting priviliges. Trying to come up with a fun little adventure I decided on a reconnaissance trip to Hillsborough's Hog Day. Since Chapel Hills Apple Chill would be no longer(The people who committed the shootings at the last one probably ruined it for the rest of us who don't go around shooting people!) I thought it would be good time check out an alternative.

We parked on Chilton Street, just south of the festival grounds and walked across the bridge. It was HOT and I thought to myself, "Bad Move, you should be home watching the World Cup in a nice air conditioned house!". Against my better judgement I continued, but was pleasantly surprised when I entered the fair grounds(sort of through the back door-although there is no admission so it was a legitimate way of getting in!) and realized that the grounds are for the most part in grassy areas shaded by the huge hard wood trees! This was certainly an advantage over Chapel Hill's Apple Chill where you walk down the middle of the street with no sign of shade ahead or behind unless you walk in the shade of the building. (But that defeats the purpose as you can't see what is in the booths lining the street!).

We took a 25 minute jaunt through the grounds with four goals: 1) get an idea of what Hog Day had to offer; 2) avoid heat stroke; 3) Find a free balloon for my daughter(or a ball, in her language) and 4) Find the Antique Auto Show(which is one of the high spots of the fair).

The first area we went through was the kids rides. It looked pretty standard with slides, gravity booths, merry go rounds and games. Luckily my daugher(by the way, she's 14 months old) didn't know what any of that stuff was and had only one purpose in life after we saw the first child with the balloon and that was to "Get a ball" pronounced "it a ba'.

We left the game area and did a quick walk through the crafts fare. Again pretty typical- jewelry, woodcrafts, pottery, hand made instruments etc...but located in a shady area so we could have walked slowly and looked at everything with more detail(had we not been looking for the balloon).

Next was the food area....Blooming onions, Gyros, lemonade etc... again the typical fair food. The only problem was that the food area was in the middle of what appeared to be a parking lot. Once we were in the center of the eating area in the sweltering heat, if felt like we were walking in oil-drenched humidty. We knew we wouldn't last for long and didn't want to go home smelling like a bio-fuel station so we headed over quickly to see the bandstand. But, if you do want to eat, you can buy your food and find a nice shady place to sit down and eat it!

We approached the bandstand and yes, there was live music and plenty of room to enjoy it. Wd we would have, but we still had a mission to accomplish. I was also a bit disappointed because the last time I had gone to Hog Day, Elvis had been the headliner.(How can you top that!)

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