The day before the parade of sheep occupies downtown Ketchum, the nearby town of Hailey enjoys the focus of the Trailing of the Sheep Festival. The Folklife Fair brings the traditional music of faraway lands into the Sun Valley, along with activities and food. And in a nearby field, the Championship Sheepdog Trials are held.
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Along with the entire town of Ketchum, we were waiting on Main Street for a parade which was thirty minutes late. Just as I was starting to feel the first pangs of boredom: they were there. Thousands of sheep running, sprinting down the street, bleating and panicked and jumping over each other, trying to escape through the crowd, getting reined in by barking dogs, cheered on by screaming kids, and blessed with holy water by a courageous preacher standing his ground in the middle of the street. And then it was over.
I'm from Ohio; not a fact I usually brag about, but it does come with some perks. For example, Ohio is home to the world's greatest amusement park. Oh, shut your cheese-hole, Mickey. Disney World doesn't hold a candle to Cedar Point, and you know it.
Maybe it was all the Mountain Dew we'd been drinking, but Jürgen and I woke up on Saturday morning with an unquenchable thirst for crazy action. "Dude!" I yelled at him. "Extreeeeme!" came his frenzied reply. Mouths frothing, we examined our options. Repelling in the Sawtooths? Lame. Kayaking in Hell's Canyon? Snooze-ville. But what's this? An ice cream social in historic Roseberry? Sounds like it's time to get our party shoes on!
"Which one is it going to be?" I whispered to Jürgen after the pilots had finished up their morning briefing and were beginning to mingle with the passengers. "Hopefully that guy with the handlebar moustache!" As luck would have it, it was. The awesome dude with the handlebar moustache had seen his name on the placard we were holding, and approached us. "Quinn", he said, putting his hand out. "Eric Quinn".
With a history stretching back to 1897, the Western Idaho Fair is one of the state's biggest annual celebrations. Concerts, competitions, rides, games, crazy food and an overabundance of stinking, dusty farm animals occupy the large fairground for a week on the northern end of Boise. We couldn't resist checking it out, and showed up on the fair's final day.
