Evergreen State Fair

Rating: 9/10

Cost: $ 12 per person

Location: Monroe (40 minutes drive from Redmond)

Parking: $10 flat for parking at any of the entrance gates

Earlier during the year, I attended Washington State Fair yet another time but first time in the spring. However we’d been longing to attend Evergreen State Fair where the last time we went was in 2015. Despite it’s similar nature, there is a lot of different stuff to offer. Based on my recent experience if I had to compare the fairs, Washington State Fair is much larger but Evergreen State Fair has much better animal exhibits. For this year, Evergreen State Fair is already over (on Labor Day) though while Washington State Fair still has 2 weeks remaining, so head there while you can.

Logistics

There is not much to say here. Typing “Evergreen State Fairgrounds” in Google Maps, and following signs as you get closer for “Fair Parking” lead you to the correct place. There are multiple entrance gates such as White Gate, Purple Gate and you pay parking in cash. After that you can buy entrance ticket on the spot. Once inside, there are multiple kinds of things to do: there are the booths, art fairs, animal exhibits, petting zoo, RV show, Grandstand (performances), Equestrian Park and a lot of rides. I will go through the sections in order of my preference.

Animal exhibits

There are a lot of animal exhibits. My favorite one is one in the big building with bunnies, guinea pigs, pigeons, chickens and dogs. Each of the animals is submitted by competitors trying to showcase their animals and win prizes for cutest or other categories. Apart from these, there are separate sheds for cows, goats, pygmy goats, sheep, swines, llama/ alpaca. A lot of them have award tags as “audience favorite”, “judges favorite” as well as a description of their breeds. You can truly see a huge variety of breeds for every animal represented here. I will just put some photos of cute animals from these exhibits to give an idea rather than rambling.

Apart from these, there is Animal Petting Zoo. Here you’re allowed to be among the animals, and pat them. A high emphasis is placed on sanitation and patrons cleaning their hands with sanitizers afterwards. Here you’ve pigs, cow, chicken running around, llama, sheep and even deer and wallabies. You’re allowed to feed the animals by buying their feed from outside except for few animals. This is an excellent experience especially for kids, but even for adults like me who are very fond of animals and love patting animals especially furry ones like llama.

Equestrian Park

This is a large venue adjacent to Petting Zoo which hosts a variety of competitions. The last time I came here in 2015, we saw the Rodeo which even though not comparable to Texas rodeo is close enough. This time we just walked into (included in entrance ticket) horses going through obstacle course at a very high speed. The video will demonstrate my point better.

Booths and Art Fairs

This is the section where Washington State Fair is an order of magnitude larger and better than Evergreen State Fair. Even though the kind of products and booths is similar, the Washington State Fair has much larger variety of products you don’t see elsewhere in the market. There are plenty of food stalls, but the exciting ones like venison/ alligator meat or deep-fried butter ones are missing here and the most exciting items are deep-fried oreos, shish-kaboberries, caramel apples. Apart from that, it’s usual stuff. The art section attempts to showcase some good local arts, ranging from kids to adults and seniors. The arts include not just paintings, but designer cakes, dolls, LEGO art and my favorite- egg art (exquisite designs using egg of different birds such as ostrich, emu as base). Washington State Fair has a much bigger section on things such as working models of trains etc.

Culture

The rides section on the other hand is very small by comparison to the Washington State Fair. I barely ride in either of the locations, but the Washington State Fair has a lot more to offer and looks magnificent after sunset.

Overall if possible I like doing both State Fairs, given how different it is from the everyday American experience but otherwise alternating between them over years is a good strategy. If you’re into animals though, I’d recommend checking out the Evergreen State Fair next year.

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