Camp Read A Lot is a one day conference for teachers and librarians to get together and talk about books. I earn continuing education credit for reading the book list. I always read the youngest list for prek-1st grade because there are way more books on that list I can use with students than the upper grade lists. The books on the 5-8th grade list are generally are better for free reading and not classroom use. I still peruse those and mark ones that sound interesting.
The day of the conference, they feed you well, you get to hear an author speak (and sign your books), you go home with free books... what's not to love!
The following day is Farmfest, basically a county fair minus the animals and rides. So, all the commercial exhibits where people try to sell you things? That's primarily what you see. My side of the family goes every year. Dad gets coupons for free things at particular booths in the mail: pork chop on a stick! ice cream! cheese curds!
It's three days, and we aim to attend the day of the free pancake breakfast. After pancakes, we wander around, usually without a plan, and stop at booths that look like they're giving away cool stuff. Most of the time I go home with a nice new pail, popcorn, water, various bags, pork seasoning, a meat thermometer, and samples of up-and-coming ag products from the research tent.
This year was no different in that respect. I won a brand new bucket by getting a hole-in-one on the putting green in a seed seller tent. Dad happened to be wearing a shirt from that seed company, so they gave all of us free ice cream tickets.
My sister's family, including my two nieces (both under three) came along, so the booths we spent the most time at were different. They wanted to see the animals (two booths had calves and sheep for equipment demonstrations) and sit on all the tractors. But only the red ones! And play in the corn pools (kiddie pools filled with shucked corn) and jump around on the straw bales set out for people to sit on. We spent quite a bit of time in the farm safety booths doing the kid activities too. My favorite exhibit was the "is this toxic or a fake?" You had to guess if the liquids in jars were antifreeze, gasoline, coolant, window cleaner, etc. I got all but one right!
Then lunchtime rolled around and the girls got hungry. Their family decided to hit the road. We had packed a lunch, so those remaining found a trailer to sit on and enjoyed our sandwiches. Then the rain started. We thought we'd go through the tents and maybe wait it out, but by the time we finished those, the rain pelted down even harder. So we got our ice cream and went home!
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