Stock Show Secrets

We're back from the San Antonio Stock Show. You can go over to the family blog for updates and pictures of that. Sadie and Leonard placed 14th. We were really proud of both of them. Get ready for lots of posts about the week. Kids in the car for 8 hours, animals and being a tourist give lots of post options.

Today I'm going to share a few tips I learned at the show:

• If you don't have an exhibitors' pass or a parking permit, arrive before 7:00am. No one will be there to check. Of course, none of the exhibits are open yet, only one place is open for breakfast and the line is long (lamb, pig, and steer people have to eat) and if you aren't there to show or watch someone show you won't have anything to do for several hours. But, you'll get in free. It makes for a really long day, though. (Net savings: $18)
• The food is expensive and not that great. If you wander around long enough you'll find some free samples, though. We were treated to chuck wagon coffee and biscuits, free ice cream cones (small, but good) and various samples from H.E.B in the afternoon. If you go through the lines enough times, you can fill up. (Depending on how many people you are feeding and how many meals you are there for you can save anywhere from $10-$50 a day by sticking to the samples, however, you probably aren't doing your part for the economy if you follow this tip and the first one)
• The exhibits that are geared toward kids are terribly crowded and congested during school hours--try to wait until all of the school groups leave before checking those out.

Here's a sampling of what T.S. ate:

• Monday--1 hot dog
• Tuesday--2 hot dogs, 2-3 biscuits, 4 ice cream cones
• Wednesday--biscuit (his goal was four, but we didn't make it back over to the chuck wagon), 1 ice cream cone

More useful (or useless) stock show info to come...