Thrills and Oil Spills @ OC Fair

Orange County Fair

Location: 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Entertainment Cost: Free during We Care Wednesdays

Entertainment Value: Scary Rides, Jumbo fried food, and lots of Carni lights
Food Value: Texas size, smoked, deep fried, battered, and Good All American Fat

What makes the OC fair such a horrendous place to have so much fun is its parking--getting there is like trudging through a game of solitaire--it just takes lots of patience, inching forward through bumper to bumper traffic, and paying for a space that took you twenty minutes to find, kind of like Costco Sundays. However, once you're at the Fairgrounds it all makes sense. This gianormous conglomerate of a "fair" is Carnival/Food Orgy/Music Festival all in one. No wonder everybody and their mommas want to come here. 

American Idol Season Eight runner up winner Adam Lambert was headlining that evening's concerts of mini concerts. Though we didn't buy our tickets, we did catch the Lambert Fever from the crowds that were heading over to see him. Over at the free concerts section, there were many music renditions going on simultaneously. We witnessed a jazz band with the big cello and Jazz suits all worked up, we also heard a two man band playing oldies but goodies, "It's Raining Men, Hallelujah", and watch teeny boppers sing to Beyonce's "If you like then you shoulda put a ring on it...uh oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh." 

The food was deliciously unhealthy. We ate deep fried zucchini, deep fried Australian potato "chips", Crispy Creme chicken sandwich ( which is essentially two jelly donuts sandwiching a chicken with honey drippings as the condiment), jumbo corn dogs, jumbo turkey legs, and even the fries there are jumbo sized. It's a delight while you're eating it but maybe five or ten minutes afterwards, your body feels like it just woke up next to a hooker---just downright dirty. But boy was it good when you were gobbling all that oil and saturated lard down.

Two things about the OC fair that beats Disneyland hands down: 1) Smoked Turkey Legs (it's fresher, smokier, and juicier) and 2) Scary rides.

Note that I said "scary" not "fun", although personally I translates scary into fun. Minus the top engineering graphics and architechural design, the rides at the OC fair is pee in your pants, I can't believe they make this legal, Are you sure it's stable, scary. I don't know the specific names, but one particular example is the first ride my friend Lisa and I rode on; it had three round brush shaped protrusions stemed from an turning axel. You are shoulder strapped at one of the four seats, backed by a second row of four. When you are lifted in the air, the axel is swinging 360 like a super speed carousel while the round brush looking arms where you are sitting are rotating 360 also. In essence, your entire body is being jolted in mid-air at different angles while flying at superspeeds. It is definitely not a ride for the weak (stomachs).

Lisa and I on the right before the craziness

After: Can you find us? We can't either...my mind was scrambled with the rest of my body.

The second super scary ride we went on looked like one of your typical 360 turning riddles, except for the fact that while it's spinning it is also swinging the entire passenger seat back and forth like a pendulem, and you would think that it will continue to swing back and forth like a rocking boat while spinning, but that's not even the beginning. It gets super freaky when it stops swinging at the apex, which is most top part of the sky, while we are hanging completely upside down looking at the awesome view of the lighted up carnival at the top and the empty dark blue sky on the bottom. Gravity pushed us against the weight of two bars that kept us from falling to our deaths 20 feet below and the sensation of our butts completely off the seats, our blood rushing to our brains, and our hearts thumping out of our throats for a good half a minute was something more terrifying than any other Magic Mountain, Disney, or Knotts Ride I've been to. 

Jet Li, Lackena, and Dana patiently sitting out

The next and last ride was less terrifying than it did actually lead on. It only could hold eight people at a time. It was a long bow shaped mechanism with a fixed axel in the middle so that it almost looked like a see saw, except that it went the full 360 swing at a velocity that matched bungee jumping. The free falling effect gives you the rush, when the momentum accelerates from the vertical peak to the lowest peak, but of course there's a twist (pun intended); your seats are loosely swinging back and forth like on a ferrish ride, while you are being launched upwards and downwards around the axel, like a ball on a mangonel. It was altogether very exhilarating and very brief. I wished it lasted longer, but with 8 people riding at a time, and about 60 people waiting in line, you can't blame them for cutting it short for those waiting to get on. 

For thrill seekers, I would highly recommend going on the OC fair carni rides. Since the tickets are pretty pricy, the best bang for your buck is to go during Wednesdays and Thursdays before 5pm to obtain your unlimited ride pass for $25 or go there friday for $1 rides. The best would be to go there early afternoon on a Wednesday to get in free for a Wednesday Care donation, obtain your unlimited ride pass, and just have a go until 8 (which is when the unlimited ride deal expires). All in all, thrills and oil spills (no pun intended on that one).