Another State Fair Visit & Thank You

[japacejr]

My wife and I took a day off and went to the State Fair. We managed to go on Senior Day "again" and the lines to enter were pretty long even though we were there early.

I was a bit apprehensive as this would be my first time to carry at the fair. But I had read many of the threads on here. I had my CHL handy, expected to show it to the security person and be directed to the LEO. Except when I got in line there was no LEO in sight, which raised my apprehension just a bit more.

I picked the line of the guy who seemed to be in charge (yellow shirt) and doing his best to move the line along, asking everyone to have their purse and packs open, and directing people to other lines.
When it was my turn, I showed him my card, he just asked me to show it to the LEO who was inside the gate on the right and off I went.

Once inside, I stopped and showed it to the LEO and he took a look, gave it back and told us to have a good day. I did have to wonder if anyone would have noticed if I did or did not stop at the LEO station.

Once we cleared the gate area I didn't give it another thought. Well, until we were watching a demo on a foot & back massagers and the demo guy wanted to show me on my lower back... Whoops, let's not do that shall we.

We enjoyed a beautiful fall day at the fair. I thank the Good Lord for the weather and I thank the many posters on here that have shared their experiences so that guys like me can learn. I don't post often, but I read the active threads almost every day and have learned tremendously from this site.

Thank you to everyone on here.

-j

PS. My wife and daughter are down there today with some friends and I will be riding the DART rail down there later (another first time carry) to join them and escort them home. Expecting my second visit to the fair to go smoothly as well.

[japacejr]

As a follow up, yesterday I made my return trip to the fair.

I rode the DART rail down from Plano to meet my wife & daughter. The train was mostly empty when I got on so I was able to grab a seat that kept my right side to the wall. This was a good thing because by the time we reached the Pearl Street Station we were packed in like sardines and body contact was just unavoidable.

I (and the rest of the sardines) changed to the green line and since I was the last to get on I ended up standing in the stairwell. This did leave my right hip directly in front of the person sitting to my right, but I wasn't printing and like many of you have said before, people don't pay attention anyway.

At the Fair Park stop the mass of sardines flowed out of the cars and directly to the gate so I had to step off to the side so I could pull my licenses out and be ready. Fortunately I had a sack with me so I was able to hold that in my right hand and effectively shield anyone from pressing up against my right side.

Picking my line/security person wasn't an option as attempting to change lines would have been as futile as swimming against a rip tide. Fortunately I was swept into the line of another guy wearing a yellow shirt and again he looked at my card just long enough to ask me to stop and show it to the LEO. This time the LEO station was visible, however, the LEO was not. I headed in that direction and the security guy didn't stop me. I stopped at the LEO station, walked completely around it scanning for an LEO but there was none to be seen.

So I walked on in. I considered stopping at another LEO station and checking in with him. But at the next station I passed, the LEO stationed there was in a somewhat animated conversation with another fairgoer and I didn't want to chance catching him at a bad time.

I met up with my family and other then the sheer mass of humanity it was another beautiful day at the fair.

The return trip home was just a crowded and just as uneventful.