Spent the last few days checking out the Columbus scene and even discussing certain amounts of spatial distribution analysis. Certain amounts. We got a little distracted by, well, pig racing.

Yes, pig racing has reared it’s head once more at the Ohio State Fair, and this time I had my camera to record the excitement. One of the funniest things was that to encourage the pigs around the track, the crowd was urged to “root them on”. Five people were selected from the crowd to be “special pig rooters” and if their pig won, they received a little flag, a blue ribbon and a badge that read “NUMBER ONE PIG ROOTER”. Di and I were the only ones there that were bilingual enough to be rolling in the aisles.

We also noticed the care and attention given to sheep at the Fair. There are a few strange things done with sheep here in Ohio (hey! get your minds out of the gutter!) and one of them is to show a sheep by removing all the wool. Of course, they get a little dirty and cold then, so often they have to wear little coats to deal with this. Most of the coats are kind of dull, but there are a few farmers that feel their sheep really need to stand out from the crowd.

In other news from the Fair, we encountered an interesting phenomenon with sticks. It seems that if you can get a food and attach it to a stick, you’ve got yourself a winning snack to sell. There were the usual suspects like the Hot Dog On A Stick, and Cotton Candy On A Stick, but there were a few interesting variations. Things that had no place being on a stick were also being sold - Steak On A Stick and Cheese On A Stick as a couple of examples. This is what we both define as “wrong”…

Today we went on a bit of an outing to check out a couple of things in Columbus that are worth a detour for those in the area. Firstly, there is a field in Dublin (an adjoining suburb of Columbus) where 104 giant concrete corn cobs stand proudly.

Secondly, there is a park downtown where a large topiary display is recreating Georges Seurat’s famous painting “A Sunday Afternoon On The Ile De La Grande Jatte” which is of interest. There’s still a little bit of growth to go in some places, but it’s definitely interesting to see such a big topiary area devoted to one theme.

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001