Fur, food and fun

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, August 23, 2005

MONROE – There’s a place around here where you can learn the difference between pygmy and dairy goats while eating a corn dog after riding a roller coaster on your way to a hypnotist before calling it a day at the end of a monster truck rally.

The annual menagerie for the senses, otherwise known as the Evergreen State Fair, opens its gates Thursday at the fairgrounds in Monroe.

And though in its 97th year of offering all the usual must-sees of fur, food and fun, the fair is also changing with the times with some new attractions.

The Oregon Museum of Science &Industry is bringing 10 to 12 tables of equipment and problem-solving challenges for children and their parents.

Can’t tear your kids away from video games? Those will be at the fair, too, for the first time.

Experienced gamers and first-timers alike can head to the Interactive Game Experience, or IGX, a portable video game environment with 20 screens and all the major platforms, including PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo Game Cube.

Kevin Nortz / The Herald Francisco Ojeda of Veracruz, Mexico, helps set up a merry-go-round at the Evergreen State Fair Tuesday afternoon in preparation for Thursdays opening of the 97th annual fair.

To help families that get separated, bracelets will be available at the gate. Parents can write their names, their child’s name and their cell phone number on the inside of the bracelet so fair workers can contact them should the child get lost.

Also new this year is a child identification program provided by the Washington Masons. Free of charge, parents can get a packet with fingerprints, DNA swabs, dental impressions and a three- to five-minute video of their child.

The fair also will appeal to people with a sense of nostalgia and adventure, said Elizabeth Grant, the fair’s marketing director.

There’s cotton candy and elephant ears, a Ferris wheel and carnival games, lumberjacks and fiddlers and gardeners, reptiles and clowns, and beekeepers and rodeos, and fireworks and … and …

“Yeah, you just see so much neat stuff,” Grant said. “It just kind of takes you back.”

Last year, 845,278 people visited the fair. If the weather holds, Grant said, fair organizers are looking for attendance to be even higher this year. Already, concert sales to shows during the 12-day fair run look good, she said.

Bands including Blue Oyster Cult will play as part of the lineup, alongside the likes of country star Phil Vassar and Raven Symone, the actress-turned-singer who played Olivia on “The Cosby Show” and starred in Disney’s “That’s So Raven.”

Just like every year, traffic on U.S. 2 can be a drag, and finding parking near the fairgrounds can be tricky. Community Transit will run buses from Everett, Snohomish and Gold Bar so traffic haters can enjoy a relaxing park-and-ride experience.