Paul Lies About his Age and Plays Ring Toss with a Robot

August 23, 2025

New York State Fair – Syracuse NY

We got up early and headed to the fairgrounds around 8:45 AM.

If you’re over 65 you get in for free. Paul isn’t quite there yet. He bought an “all days” pass but the website curiously claims, “one entrance” which seems to oddly imply that once you leave you can’t get back in. We weren’t going stay all day so he just walked in with the group, Bill said “Old people.” and we were in!

We saw them practicing barrel racing, then we wandered the horse barns, then back to the barrel racing to watch some fast riders.

But first, you water the track.

Then you drive tractors around grading the track. This grading was done after every 4 or so riders.

The riders all put on a good show.

This next rider is fist pumping because they had just set a new personal best time!

Paul wanted something to drink and Bill had overhead someone say that the donut truck made the best donuts in the world. So we split up for donuts and lemonade. The donuts were amazing, totally worth the calories. (susan here: Oh, a single donut probably had a week’s worth of sugar. The maple was better than the vanilla one.)

Then we went into the agricultural museum so see some old timey things. There were some wood working exhibits but not the wool spinning we had wanted to see.

Then we were off to see something that Susan really wanted to see, the Hollywood Racing Pigs. She thought it would be hysterical or lame.

It was lame. They weren’t very fast (but they were cute). Plus we were getting overheated being in direct sun w/temps in the high 80s. We decided to go back to the RV but walked through the 4H building just to get out of the sun. Some of the 4H kids had built “robots” that would either toss balls or rings at you. Paul tried it, getting all three rings.

Then they asked if he wanted to try high speed mode.

He got the first and third rings and almost had the second one.

On the way out we got wrist bands for reentry, so there were no worries about having to sneak back in again.

We’d been up very late the night before, it was hot and we were pretty cooked from the sun. We decided to “call it” and head back to the RV to enjoy some AC and relax a bit. (susan here: I took a nap. A nap that was about 2.5 hours. I must have been tired!)

After the nap and dinner, we headed back into the fairgrounds to see the 7pm barrel racing and then the concert with O. A. R., this is a band that both Donna and Bill knew, but had never seen, and we both had never even heard of them.

Of course we took more pictures of horses and riders. One of rider appears they can defy the laws of gravity!

The concert was great, Bill, forever known as The Sherpa, carried all 4 chairs to the venue and waited an hour for us to arrive, he got us great seats. Thank you Bill!

O.A.R started almost right on time, which pleased Paul to no end. Events should start on time, damnit!