Monterey Fairgrounds

I haven’t been to a fair in a while so I was kinda excited to go to the 2015 Monterey County Fair. We went on a Saturday at about 6pm. Of course there was no parking available anywhere by the fairgrounds so I begrudgingly parked in the «Fair Parking with Shuttle» which is located a little less than 10 minutes away from the fair. They charged $ 5 to park and then we hopped on an awaiting shuttle. No hassle like I thought it would be. We arrived at the fair and discovered that they don’t take credit cards so I had to use one of their atm machines to get cash which charged me about $ 5, urgh. The admission was $ 10 for adults which is a great deal. Of course I had to buy ride tickets which were $ 35 for 45 tickets, they had other ticket packages that were smaller and bigger but 45 was perfect for 3 people. FYI, the booth for ride tickets did take credit cards but definitely take plenty of cash because you will need it for almost everything else. The bathrooms were super small, only two stalls per bathroom so there was always a line out the door. The fairgrounds seemed really small and was very congested with a ton of people. It really made it difficult to walk around because we were constantly having to push our way through the crowd and it only got more crowded as the night went on. Another URGH. :(there were the standard fair rides although they seemed to have more than Marin County Fair. Barn animals were on exhibit, a live country tribute band played all night (they were pretty good), plenty of booths were around to look at and games. But the food selection is really what I loved, they had a plethora of fair food, from fried twinkies to lobster fries and ceviche, corn on the cob to egg rolls on a stick. Anything you can think of they had. I wanted to try everything but we settled on lobster fries and ceviche. The lobster fries were $ 10 and totally underwhelming, the lobster was rubbery and tasted like bacon!?! It also did not help that I had to wait about 30 minutes for them and that was after I already stood in line and ordered. URGH once again! The ceviche looked way watery and had to be completely doctored up with a ton of stuff in order for it to have any taste at all. All of this may sound like we had a bad time but we actually enjoyed just the whole fair experience, we played some of the rigged games and waited in ridiculously long lines for rides (the maze of mirrors was a hoot) but that’s what a fair is all about :) At the end of the night we were completely exhausted, in pain, hungry, and totally happy!

I have been here a few times for the County Fair (which happens a bit later than other county fairs). The fairgrounds are teeny (I moved to Monterey from Alameda County, which has HUUUUGE fairgrounds), but the county fair itself is rather cute. It’s only about $ 8 to get in and you get go through it in about an hour or so, but it’s fun. The fair gets really crowed, though, but there’s lots to do. An added bonus for me? I live within waking distance of this place. A minus to this is if there is music, I can hear it from my apartment.
You never know what to expect here. They have quite a few functions.

So many good memories here from a couple Obon Festivals back in he day, to the Monterey County Fair, to voulnteering on Thanksgiving Day to feed the less fortunate, to my first concert (I was like 12 or 13) that my friend won tickets for on 102.5 KDON… All For One… they sang, «I Swear». A strange group but I was young…
Thanks to a very nice friend who gave my Mom tickets, we were able to enjoy the Monterey Jazz Festival for the first time after living here for 3 decades… Thank you Adam-​san & Family!
We had tickets for the 8pm show and saw a bit of everything but my Mom wanted to see Dianne Reeves and she was just EPIC!
After her show, I wandered around a bit to find something to snack on but instead returned to the seats the first time with 2 more plastic cup fulls of wine (8 tickets each, Carmel Road — Pinot Noir and some Pinot Grigio), and my next round was a deliciously cold and refreshing floral beer (I need to find out the name of it, very unique) and I had to get the Margarita served in a red Herradura Keepsake Cocktail Shaker (9 tickets)… so needless to say after three rounds we were really hungry…
We look forward to going back for more great music, awesome kettlecorn ($ 9 for the large, 1 month supply) and a good time in general.