Ridin' in style!

So I've been telling you about my oh-so-fun visit to the Indiana State Fair: the friends, the memories, the pigs, the dairy bar and the wonders of the Wonder Trail...but what's a visit to the fair without riding the rides, right?

Now this next part might surprise you. When you think of farmers and you think of the fair, you probably think about all the animals in the barns, right? But did you know at the Indiana State Fair, farmers are responsible for the rides, too? At least in part!

Well first, the tractors that run the shuttles run on a 20% blend of biodiesel. But did you know the rides on the midway do, too?

 Before riding the rides, Gal in the Middle, the Frugalista and the rest of my family were lucky enough to visit with Amber from North American Midway Entertainment...the world's largest traveling amusement park and provider of the carnival and midway rides seen at the Indiana State Fair. She shared with us lots of cool facts about their midway.

For example, when they arrived in Indianapolis they did so with well over 250 trucks and trailers with not only the rides and carnival games, but also with mobile offices, housing for their staff, and even a traveling school? Very impressive!

She also shared that along with having a smoke-free Kiddie Land, their staff also maintains a smoke-free environment throughout the entire midway. And one more way they keep the air our kidders are breathing cleaner is by using soy biodiesel.

All the rides and carnival games you see on the midway are powered by generators...generators that run on diesel fuel. Amber said it's important to their company to use biodiesel blends whenever they are available, not only because the fuel is cleaner burning, but also because it is renewable and supports American agriculture. Cleaner air for the kidders is always a good thing when you're talking about enough generators to power more than 25 rides in Kiddie Land alone.

All in all, NAME operates more than 60 rides, 16 concessions and 30 games at the Indiana State Fair alone. That's a lot of power! But they also take steps to reduce their energy consumption (for example by not turning on the rides' light until night time) as well as by providing recycling containers throughout the midway.

After chatting with Amber, she was sweet enough to give us each a midway pass to check the rides out for ourselves. The first stop the kidders (Sissy, Bubby, Baby Boy and Gal & Frugalista's nephew) chose was Crazy Mouse...

 Gal was brave enough to volunteer to ride with the kidders...

 Here they are on their crazy mouse during the ride...

 And big grins when they were done! Though Sissy says she was a little scared! :)

 Then it was on to one of the fun houses with the Old Man in tow...

 Looks like they had a little trouble getting out the spinning barrel...look closely: that's Bubby;s head upside down in the bottom right corner....

 But the ride operator quickly came to their rescue and helped them off. Then it was on to one of the roller coaster rides...that means it was my turn, right?

 That's Gal's nephew and Bubby up front...and me and Sissy in the back...

 The ride was fun, but I was seriously starting to doubt it would ever end. Does that mean I'm getting old?

 Obviously "old" and "mature" are not the same thing.

Disclosure: The Indiana Soybean Alliance provided a family 4-pack of tickets to give away on my blog as well as tickets for my family to attend the state fair..NAME provided us with midway ride passes. Our meals were provided by Indiana Dairy and Indiana Pork producers. And they were delicious.