The Kansas State Fair: Getting There

I have never been to any state fair other than Kansas's, so I do not know how ours compares with others. I like to go about every 3-4 years, and decided this was the year. I wanted to go on a week-day evening; not only is it cooler than during the day, but it looks, smells, and sounds more magical at night.

We set out about 4:00 on Thursday evening. We knew we couldn't stay too late as Harry had to go to work at 6:00 the next morning, but we did want to make an Alco stop before we got to the fairgrounds.

We had bought an 8 cup coffe maker at Alco in Abilene on Father's Day weekend. It worked for about 3 weeks and quit. It had a 90 day warranty, so we took it back to the Abilene store on August 28. Like the silly people we are, we exchanged it for a new one. We realized shortly after we left the store that we should have had our money refunded and then purchased the new one. The replacement make, since it was an exchange, had less than 30 days left on the warranty. I am assuming a new purchase would have had a new 90 days.

Well, we used that coffee maker for about 2 weeks and it quit working. As of Thursday we had 2 days left on the warranty. We took it back to the Hutchinson Alco. Harry explained to them what had happened and that we did not want another pot; we just wanted our money refunded. And if I know my husband, he explained it in minute detail.

The young lady who was handling the refund asked as she was doing the paper-work, "Was there a problem with the item?" My inclination was to say "Not other than the fact that it quit working after we had it for 2 weeks and I do not need any more counter art in my kitchen."

We left Alco and headed for the fairgrounds. We had no trouble finding parking and were close enough to the east gate to not need the shuttle. We were ready to enjoy the fair.