Posted by Mark on August 27, 2006, 20:46:21 I turned around after this stunning three-for-the-price-of-one sighting and proceeded back down Judson Avenue encircling the horticulture building. I spot a family with two daughters (or perhaps one daughter with a friend) and could see one of the petite girls smoking an all-white. Sighting #40 of the day was definitely the youngest smoker I saw at the State Fair this weekend. I doubt she was older than 14, and at the most 15. Almost every year, I see one early-teen smoker, but usually it’s a girl who fits a more alternative profile. Not this girl. She was a blonde cutie in a pink T-shirt and snug denim shorts, the most wholesome looking early-teen smoker I’ve seen at the State Fair since 2000. Just as I was arriving, the girls (one of whom was not smoking, at least at that time) parted ways with the parents, with the young girl openly smoking on the busiest street in the fairgrounds. It was hard to follow them with foot traffic as intense as it was, but nonetheless managed to see some deep drags and bathe in some secondhand fumes before she squashed it out on the pavement underneath the heel of her flip-flop (what could be cuter than that?). I never did get a good look at this girl’s face, but that would change about an hour later as I was walking down the midway and saw the same two girls. Neither of them was smoking at this time, but the smoker girl definitely had the look of a seasoned smoker as I quickly studied her face. While not drop-dead gorgeous, she was very cute and the kind of girl I would have killed to go out with when I was in 8th or 9th grade. I encircled the horticulture building and headed to the booth selling “cheap” pop near the information booth, taking in a quality sighting while standing in line for my Dr. Pepper. Sighting #43 was a slow trajectory (ultimately making it more satisfying) that started with a group of 18-ish guys and girls lighting themselves up. The cutest girl of the bunch was a petite brunette in adorably snug denim jean shorts that tightly packaged her feminine form. After being struck by her cuteness, I quickly noticed she was holding the pack of Marlboro Mediums that her boyfriend had just tapped into. As of yet, however, the girl had not dipped into her own pack. She purchased her beverage about the same time I did and proceeded to sit, along with the rest of her clique, on the cement steps of the information booth corner, unfortunately without the pack of Marlboro Mediums in sight. But never fear….she reached into the pockets of those jean shorts and allowed that pack of smokes to see the light of day again, before extracting a cigarette and lighting herself up. She looked so petite and adorable sitting there smoking and drinking her soda on those steps in her impossibly sexy jean shorts. Every year, I make a point of traveling the sparsely-traveled north side of the fairgrounds, which consists of a lot of tractor vendors and farm implement dealers, along with the 4-H building, among other things. I’ve gotten some quality sightings on the north side over the years, but by and large, it’s not a sightings hotbed, so I usually limit myself to one pass through the area. Such was the case this year. I did pull off six sightings in the half-hour loop, all modestly impressive but nothing blockbuster. That took me up to 49 sightings, and I was hoping to hit a homerun or at least a solid double for Sighting #50. I returned to the information stand to get a drink of water from one of their fountains when #50 revealed herself in the most bombastic of ways. Here’s this stunning early-20s blonde with a flamboyant pink cowgirl hat heading towards the seating of the information stand to meet a likely boyfriend, with a cigarette clutched in those feminine fingers. She was quite attractive, but it was that cotton-candy blonde hair and pink cowgirl hat that was the icing on the cake for my benchmark 50th sighting. It was about 4 or 4:30 by this time, and fatigue was definitely setting in on my feet after seven hours of intense walking. Still, it was generally around this time of the day when sightings start to really ramp up, so relaxation was scarcely an option. After a second disappointing jaunt through the midway which only yielded two modest sightings, I went back to the old reliable beer gardens area and found Sighting #58, an adorable 21-ish blonde sitting all by herself smoking an all-white on a bench right on the corner. She was one of the prettiest girls I saw smoking all day, and I was half-tempted to share that bench with her, but smoking hotties like her generally aren’t alone for long before their beefcake boyfriends return with a pitcher of beer. I had a blinding litany of more than a dozen impressive but unmemorable sightings over the course of the next 15 minutes, several of which were listening to live music performed in the beer gardens. But my next memorable moment wouldn’t come until the breathtaking Sighting #73. Last year, I recall a moment when I arrived at Judson Avenue from the DNR building, and while I almost always turn left from there, decided at the last minute to turn right and was rewarded with the sighting of three 18-year-old hotties smoking. Remembering that, I decided to turn right again this time, and not 10 seconds later feasted my eyes upon the most adorable 19-20ish blonde wielding an all-white. She was in the company of an older guy (possible father) and two other girls her age, none of whom were smoking. I followed from behind and could not quit admiring this blonde cutie with her long hair in pigtails hanging over her shoulder over her blue tanktop. Covering her bottom was a very tasteful denim skirt. I could see the pack of Marlboro Lights protruding above the surface of her purse and was positively giddy as I watched her polish off that cigarette, eventually crushing it out under the heel of her flip-flops. Later on, I spotted the same group sitting down to eat near the go-kart track. I observed from a distance as they were preparing to leave. I never saw another cigarette smoked by the adorable college-aged blonde in pigtails, but clung to a sense of victory after once again seeing that pack of Marlboro Lights peeking out of her purse. The pigtail girl was the first in a litany of top-shelf sightings that continued only a couple of moments later with Sightings #76 and #77. I approach a bench on Judson Avenue from behind and see a middle-aged women inserting a fresh cigarette between her lips and lighting up. As I get closer, I notice there are four females sitting on the bench, two older and two younger, and one by one watch them insert cigarettes in their lips. I crossed the street to observe from a comfortable distance. It appeared to have been a case of two middle-aged mothers and two daughters in their early-to-mid 20’s. Am I really watching two mothers and two daughters simultaneously enjoying cigarettes right in front of me or am I dreaming, I think to myself awaiting for somebody to pinch me. Neither the mothers or daughters were breathtaking beauties, but the younger girls were attractive enough to make this sighting more than worthy of locking in my long-term memory vault. The ladies soon get up, cigarettes in tow, to watch a live music performance in front of the DNR building, occupying the bleachers and exposing innocent bystanders to their noxious secondhand vapors.
172.161.225.50
The sightings came in fast and furious for the next 10 minutes, including my second-best sighting of the day, which came near the haunted house on the heavily-traveled Judson Avenue on the south side of the fairgrounds. Sighting #37 started simply enough with a modestly attractive 19-20ish dirty blonde dragging on a freshly-lit all-white. As I began to visually track her, I notice she’s in the company of an even more attractive college-age brunette wearing a pair of white sunglasses and dangling her own freshly-lit all-white from the corner of her mouth, alas becoming Sighting #38. The two girls progressed across the street, with the brunette carrying on with the longest-lasting dangle I’ve ever seen from a young girl. It must have been a good 45 seconds before she removed that cigarette from her mouth in time to meet up with what I assumed to be her parents and younger sister. Both parents were smoking, and it was clear I had come across a family of smokers. The dirty blonde didn’t look like the other two girls, so I’m not sure if she was in the family or just a friend, but Sighting #39 would transpire thanks to her as the brunette kid sister, who looked about 18, opened the backpack of the dirty blonde and extracted her pack of Marlboro Lights, wasting no time lighting herself up. The State Fair parade had just begun and the family got up to leave, apparently to follow the parade. The younger brunette was in the front of the crowd, so I couldn’t see her very well. I was more interested in the older sister, who performed that incredible dangle only minutes earlier. The girl was right in front of me, dragging copiously from her cigarette. I could tell from the inverted filter that she was smoking a Parliament, occasionally using her cell phone to snap pictures from the parade, balancing both the phone and her cigarette in one hand. It was a bona fide blockbuster sighting and I’m eternally grateful to the Minnesota State Fair for making it happen.
Considering there were as many as 180,000 people on the massive 320-acre fairgrounds yesterday, it was amazing how many times I came across the same people. In the case of this family, I saw them twice more over the course of the next two hours. On both occasions, the dirty blonde was smoking another cigarette, even though the brunettes were not. By the way, if I see the same girl(s) smoking more than once on the same day, I don’t count it as an additional sighting.
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