By Mary Windsor, Staff Writer

Published Oct.29, 2014

Turning in all directions, there is the opportunity to be enchanted by fantastic, dazzling lights.

All the colors of the rainbow flash brightly in the night sky. Giant teddy  bears, medium teddies and small teddies as far as the eye can see.

People are scattering everywhere in excitement, unsure of which ride to try first. Children drag parents from one stall to another with relentless determination.

The smells of nearly every food imaginable deep-fried and covered in what could be a deadly amount of sugar and grease permeates the air.

It’s the North Carolina State Fair, a tradition that marks the end of summer and official beginning of autumn.

      The North Carolina State Fair, which takes place in Raleigh, is the largest fair in the state. It houses designer chickens, the largest alligator and the smallest woman.

It’s a time when families come together to walk around the sticky fairgrounds on a chilly night and enjoy the simplicity of wasting too much money on food that is likely to give a person a heart attack, or tickets for rides that were constructed in a mere 12 hours, that may have a seventy-five percent chance of killing a person, or at least upsetting someone’s stomach after chowing down a doughnut hamburger, which is a real thing.

Long, loud screams can be heard high up in the sky as the whirling, twirling rides spin people faster and faster, higher and higher. Some rides are so high it strains the neck to see.

In the children’s area, there’s often a set of parents smiling and waving in animated fashion. They are desperately trying to make the rides more interesting for their bored children.

Cars and trains go round and round at a pace a snail could beat.

Music from the vast array of rides blend to form one strange droning song over a thumping back beat.

Lively and fast, the bass vibrates through a person’s body, the thrumming in the veins building up a fabricated excitement.

On every side of the fair game vendors walk into the crowd, trying to trick a poor fool to spend $5 to try and win a giant stuffed animal by shooting a deflated basketball into a non-regulation rim.

They use a microphone to try and entice you to their booth. They sound bored. They sit with their cold coffee, smoking their twentieth cigarette, hunched over in a beaten up chair.

They repeat the same words over and over, but never stop.

Their face is old and tired. Their eyes show the strain of years of late nights working the fair. They never smile.

The smell of meat chokes the air. Hot dogs, burgers and giant smoked turkey legs are everywhere.

The intense smell of food mixes with the smell of fuel from the rides and the numerous trucks that transport the fairground from town to town.

Children burn their little mouths on deep-fried Snickers that are freshly cooked.

They are served in plastic containers, which get littered for miles around.

Nothing can quite compare with the wondrous smell of fresh funnel cake doused in powdered sugar and cinnamon. Each bite has the potential to excite taste buds and warm a gluttonous heart.

Cotton candy, candy apples and fried chocolate bars entice the public to try these delicacies along with the knowledge that they only have one chance every year to do so.

Nearly everyone seems happy at the fair. Laughter can be heard from all generations, young and old.

There is something for everyone. From fine cheese that claims to come from Wisconsin to homemade ice cream made in a John Greene tractor that makes the State Fair such a popular attraction.