Another fairgrounds sightings season went into the history books yesterday with my second day at the Minnesota State Fair, which is almost always my most prolific sightings day of the year because of the outrageous crowds the Minnesota State Fair draws on Labor Day weekend. Yesterday the crowd was over 254,000, the second biggest attendance day of all-time. The more people on the grounds, the more of them are attractive young female smokers. What Minnesota lacks in its overall lower smoking rate it more than makes up for in sheer force of numbers at the state fair. In the case of yesterday, I scored 189 sightings. Last year on Labor Day weekend, I scored a breathtaking, record-setting 220 sightings, but oddly very few of those 220 were memorable. I did better with this year’s batch, even though last week at the fair packed a little bit of a harder punch with proportionally more extra-base hit sightings. I had several genuine stunners yesterday though, and one in particular that I’m still reeling about.
My parents pulled into the fairgrounds lot just before 9 a.m. yesterday morning. Last Sunday, I convinced myself that this trio of teen smokers I saw at the far north end of the fairgrounds worked at the pet barn commercial exhibit building, and I was determined to scope that building out today to see if I could locate a particularly adorable mid-teen blond in the trio. I made the long and largely unproductive treks up to the north side of the grounds four times yesterday and walked throughout the pet barn looking for her or the other two young girls smoking with her. I didn’t see a trace of any of them, meaning that I’m now leaning towards dismissing my original thought that they were all working inside there. They may have just been visiting. Whatever the case, I sadly wasted some key time scoping that situation out, but luckily I did so mostly in the morning when there aren’t many sightings anywhere on the grounds.
But before I even got up to the north side, I walked past the smoking area outside The Garden building and got my first two sightings of the day. The first one was mediocre but Sighting #2 was an interesting girl, a petite early-to-mid 20s light brunette with chin-length hair decked out in a gray sweatshirt with a feminine white dress with red flower print under the sweater. She had some weird metal shit on her nose the corrupted the presentation a bit but she was still an interesting girl to be seeing with a cigarette. When I first saw her, she was with a smoking boyfriend, but he walked away to get something as she continued to smoke. I snapped a holding pic of and stayed for a few drags. The first sighting of the day always gets the energy pumping and felt good again here.
Coming back from the north side, I came upon Sighting #3, a young blond mommy decked out in a gray sweatshirt and black leggings who stopped to sit on a bench and relax with a cigarette. She cut loose some impressive drags and I attempted a couple of photos, but missed her face as she was turned somewhat away from me on the bench. The husband/boyfriend then came over and she handed him the cigarette and from what I could tell wasn’t gonna get it back. Nice to see her with the cigarette but an unfortunate ending. I ventured from there back to the main parts of the ground.
The early morning gloom was supposed to clear out by late morning and the sunny conditions arrived pretty much on schedule around 11:00 with a beautiful sunny day in the upper 70s to follow. Since things were fairly dead those first two hours, I took a ride on the Space Tower and attended to some other business to preserve my feet for later in the day. Fresh off last week’s massive blister on my heel which I had to puncture the following Thursday night, I was very concerned how well my feet would hold up yesterday after another 14 hours on the pavement, but was fortunate that they held up well.
And it was right around 11:00 that I would have my fateful walk past the smoking area across the street from the Leinie Lodge, which has a park-like atmosphere and is covered with foliage and benches. As I approached, I first spotted Sighting #7, one of those girls who jumps out at you immediately with her IT factor. She was an early-to-mid 20s dark brunette so wholesome that even sunglasses couldn’t make her look badass. She reminded me of a smoker girl named Kelly I dated for three months this spring and early summer, wearing a white T-shirt and a bright pink shorts that made her impossible to mix up with anyone else, useful information for further in the day. Anyway, she and her boyfriend both walked up to the edge of the smoking area and lit up, at the same time as two more very attractive early-to-mid 20s girls standing near them were approaching the end of their respective cigarettes, one a dark blond in a bare midriff green top and dark jeans, the other an even more attractive and wholesome light brunette in a white and gray striped tanktop and jeans. I placed myself in between Sighting #7 and Sightings #8 and #9, ecstatic about being in the presence of such stinky beauties for the first time of the day. But there was one big problem here in that for whatever reason, two cops were hovering not far away, making photo-taking too risky to try. In less than a minute, the dark blond and brunette finished their cigarettes and began walking across the street to the Leinie Lodge. The best I could do was follow them to get a post-cigarette pic away and watch my dark brunette from across the street. I did just that and it worked out pretty well. Pretty bummed to miss out on pics and upclose bells and whistles from that wholesome dark brunette, but you never know, maybe we’ll be seeing more from her as the day goes on.
I picked up a fajita at a Mexican restaurant inside The Garden shortly after 11 and ate it near a smoking area. I got a few sightings there but nothing too memorable. I’d have better luck after eating when I walked in the direction of another smoking area west of the grandstand but found Sighting #15 before I got there. It was an early 20s long-haired dark brunette in a green top and holy jeans smoking in the presence of a nonsmoking Hispanic boyfriend and a young girl who appeared to be left with the couple while others in their party were off doing something else, perhaps getting food. The young girl looked about seven years old and it was very cute to see her having this cute brunette role model smoking openly in front of her. The smoker girl and her boyfriend were chatting amongst each other as she took her drags and I got a few pics. Unfortunately, some of my pics end up looking a little smudgy at times, more than likely because I accidentally put my finger over the lens at some point, and these were a little smudgy with somewhat blurred images. They’re not terrible though and you can still see she’s a cute young smoker who I captured on camera in mid-drag. She was a slow smoker and the vantage point was awkward, so I took off before she finished it, but stuck around for a half dozen or so drags.
Next I headed to the smoking area near the Heritage Center for the first sighting of the day to become an extra-base hit. Sighting #17 started unassumingly enough, with a young couple standing in the grass and the mid-to-late 20s blond girlfriend handing her cigarette to her boyfriend briefly while she removed her sweatshirt now that the sun was out. She was a girl-next-door type who was attractive but didn’t really stand out in the crowd. It was kind of fun watching her disrobe but the very fact that she handed the cigarette to the boyfriend didn’t fill me with confidence for when the actual smoking show finally began. Once she was down to her gray sweatshirt and her black athletic shorts she reclaimed the cigarette and surprised the hell out of me with her robust style, placing the cigarette in her mouth and parking it there for a couple of dangling drags. The cigarette stayed in her mouth long enough that I got a pic while the cigarette was dangling, and a really great pic at that. Having secured such a great pic, I just sat back and watched her pulverize the cigarette for about two minutes, taking fierce drags that included two more extended dangles. Not what I expected after the ho-hum start, and the “hold my beer” meme rolled through my head, relating to somebody upstaging their peers and asking them to “hold their beer” while they show them how it’s done. In this case, the blond flipped that meme around to “hold my cigarette”, and after she revealed a little more bare female flesh on her upper body with the sweatshirt removal she proceeded to completely emasculate the boyfriend by outsmoking him. Only a couple of minutes after reclaiming the cigarette, she had finished it and was heading to the ashtray to dispose of it (sadly denying me a butt ID), while the boyfriend was still standing there smoking his. Even after holding the girlfriend’s cigarette for her for at least a minute, she still managed to outsmoke him by a considerable margin. For the second week in a row, the Heritage Center’s smoking area delivered in a big way.
And I was fortunate I had that electric moment because things slowed down considerably after that. My goal is 20 sightings before noon and I hit that metric yesterday with 22 sightings at the 12:00 hour, but the rest of the noon hour was bleak and that rolled into the 1:00 hour with quality sightings few and far between. The next to leave an impact at all occurred in the smoking area north of the beer gardens where a duo of attractive late 20s blonds were standing near the ashtray smoking. Sightings #29 and #30 featured a shorter blond in a pink top and black shorts along with a taller blond in a green blouse and black leggings. They were both about equal in beauty and about equal in smoking style, although unfortunately both smoked a little more slowly than I’d prefer. I got a couple of pics and only one of them is any good. During the course of this sighting, another 20-something, this one a dark brunette unconnected to the two blonds, approached the same smoking area and lit one up. Sighting #31 wasn’t as attractive as the two blonds but it was nice to turn a duo into a triple play.
From there I turned the corner of the beer gardens block to the smoking area on the south side of the main bathroom area and I’ll be damned if life wasn’t giving me a second chance to see that dark brunette in the bright pink shorts (Sighting #7) who reminded me of my ex-girlfriend Kelly smoking again. But this time she wasn’t just with her boyfriend as she was last time….now there were older family members involved, either her parents or his, and they were smoking too. Unfortunately, I got there towards the end of her cigarette and only got to see a couple of closing drags. I still failed on the picture front, unable to get anything good and was pretty sick about it when I saw my photos didn’t take. Again though…let not your heart be troubled….she’ll be back!
Sightings generally plodded along in the early afternoon, but my next one worth mentioning was fairly exotic. Sighting #37 was a young woman in her 20s who appeared to be of Indian descent, with long dark brown hair and dark skin indicating her ethnic roots likely traced back to South India. It’s not often you see a girl of this pedigree smoking a cigarette, but she was doing just that sitting by herself on the curb in front of the horticulture building decked out in a white T-shirt and jean shorts. She was checking out her phone while smoking and was distracted enough that I was able to snap a couple of pics, one holding and another dragging. Unfortunately, only the holding pic turned out but it’s a good one. I once dated a girl who came from South India and she was and remains (we’ve kept in touch) a staunch anti. I thought back to her watching this girl smoking publicly at the Minnesota State Fair and have half a mind to forward her the pic showing that there are indeed some smokers of her ethnic origin. She put on a pretty good smoking show too with some solid drags and cloudy exhales.
Sighting #38 looked exciting from a distance as I spotted this young-looking girl of a petite and child-like frame smoking a cigarette outside The Garden in a gray tanktop and jean shorts that were likely purchased in the “girls” section of her big-box retailer rather than the “women’s” section. When I got there though it appeared she was more like 22, and standing next to an adult male boyfriend confirming that suspicion that she was no teenager. She wasn’t particularly attractive either but at least when she looked like a 14-year-old from afar, the sighting had potential to be something different. Nothing against her but once her smoking ended up being relatively mediocre, my high hopes were officially dashed and I moved on in pursuit of the next shiny object.
Less than an hour removed from my second sighting of the day of the dark brunette in the pink shorts who was Sighting #7, I would return to the smoking area on the south side of the bathroom area to find her with the same cast of characters (boyfriend, older relatives) smoking again at the exact same spot as before. Whoa! This girl is not someone I’d suspect would be a heavy smoker, I thought to myself looking her over again. My timing was never quite perfect with this girl though as she was once again towards the end of her latest cigarette, but this time I was at least able to get a few photos, albeit only one with a visible cigarette at the second she’s about to toss it into the nearby community ashtray. At least this time I was able to identify her brand…the very telltale (and popular with the Minnesota kids these days!) Camel Turkish Royals with the blond filters. What a refreshing burst of youth and vibrancy she repeatedly brought to that smoking area which was filled primarily with people over 45 most of the day. The sunglasses and bright pink shorts only made her presentation stick out even more.
I made a quick pass near the smoking area by the Coliseum after this, an area that was sadly beset by a gigantic pork stand that went up over the weekend that created a huge bottleneck and seemed to push away a lot of smokers. I then went back to the south side of the bathroom area since it was one of the more reliable smoking areas to produce something over the course of the day. And sure enough, a duo of early 20s gals were walking away from the smoking area with cigarettes in hand, proceeding into the alley separating the beer gardens block and the sheep barn. Both Sightings #49 and #50 were wearing black tops and leggings, but one was blond and the other was light brunette. Nothing wrong with the brunette, but the blond was hotter, wearing sunglasses with her blond locks flowing onto a bookbag she was wearing. She was also more slender and the leggings framed a nicer ass. Both girls were puffing away as they walked, unaware of or simply not caring about proceeding into an illegal area while wielding and puffing on their smelly cigarettes. I got three photos, none of them particularly awesome, but capturing them with cigarettes in hand. I was trying to get ahead of them when I had a little accident, dropping my camera and watching it split in half with the battery falling out. I figured this would not likely be fatal having seen and experienced this before, picking it up and reassembling it. Thankfully, it turned right back on and ensured I’d be able to proceed with additional mischief for the remainder of the day.
From there, I went back to the smoking area north of the beer gardens….and there she was AGAIN! She being the dark brunette in the pink shorts who was Sighting #7, smoking yet another cigarette no more than 10 minutes removed from her last. This was starting to get insane….but I wasn’t complaining. And she had just lit this one so I finally got to see a full smoking show from upclose. While there were no definitive bells and whistles to her smoking show, it was delightful to blend in with the crowd in this area and stand there a few feet in front of her watching her puff away in front of either her own parents or the boyfriend’s parents as they chatted and laughed in each other’s company. She was fast becoming the story of the day, and seemed just as much like a wholesome sweetheart in this more intimate setting as she did earlier in the day when I first laid eyes on her. Unfortunately, this big crowd that was such an asset when it came to getting an upclose vantage point of her nicely paced drags and exhales also made picture-taking very challenging, and I was only able to get one holding pic…and that one cut her head off. The Camel Turkish Royal was once again disposed of in that community ashtray after a good five-minute show.
It was well after 2:00 now, meaning the parade was ongoing on the east side of the grounds, so I did shortened loops limited to the western half of the grounds, which includes the grandstand area and the smoking areas on both sides of it. Right when I was beginning to walk away in frustration from the east side of the grandstand upon seeing nothing but unattractive old people again, this wholesome young couple popped up from out of nowhere pushing a stroller with Sighting #52 wielding an unlit cigarette that she quickly fired up. She was the quintessential “Minnesota girl”, her long blond hair wrapped up in a ponytail with ridiculously wholesome facial features and a long red and black dress fully consistent with that wholesome image. At first I was thrilled as I readied my camera to get photographic evidence of this madness, snapping a couple of really good close-up pics as she laid into that cigarette hard and took a couple of fierce drags. Unfortunately, the show would be quick…..because after three drags that played out quite quickly, she surrendered the rest of the cigarette to the husband/boyfriend who proceeded to smoke the rest of it. Obviously, this is always a buzzkill on a sighting that starts out with so much promise. I stuck around hoping she’d reclaim it and smoke most of the rest of it, but she only got one final drag at the very end. While I was still grateful for this seeing this attractive and wholesome-looking young mommy with a cigarette, it was hard not to be disappointed that the show was cut so short.
I busted my way through the absolutely insane crowd that forms in between the west side of the grandstand the Heritage Center, a crowd so consistently paralyzing that it greatly limited my subsequent visits to the Heritage Center yesterday. But the Heritage Center smoking area nonetheless delivered one more time in a big way. As I approached the smoking area, an all-too-familiar pair of bright pink shorts once again dominated my field of vision. She was completely out of control! I’d already seen her smoking four times in the last 3 1/2 hours, most recently less than a half hour ago. This time, her parents were hovering over her and she laid on the ground spooning with the boyfriend, with she being the only one in possession of the cigarette. Photo-taking was gonna be next to impossible with her in this position, but I took a nearby bench hoping I could pull it off anyway. And somehow, some way, I did. She lifted her head from the boyfriend’s chest, with the stub of yet another Camel Turkish Menthol in her hand, and placed the damn thing in her mouth for a stub-dangle final drag. It might not be the best angle, but I got the pic! I watched her last two drags before she stood up, continuing to chat with the boyfriend and the family. At one point, she briefly lifted her sunglasses off. I said even those sunglasses failed to make her look like a badass, but in those passing seconds where the sunglasses were off her wholesomeness was even more breathtaking. It was just unthinkable that THIS GIRL had smoked five cigarettes (at least!) in the last four hours at such a public venue. The girl and the rest of her group walked into the main part of the Heritage Center and that would be the last I would see of them Saturday. But never before had I seen such a prolific routine of a girl basically unable to pass any of the designated smoking areas without lighting up, and she was just the latest example of the incredible success I’ve had this fair season of seeing the same hot girl smoking multiple times on one day. In that respect, this may be my most successful fair season ever! The dark brunette in the bright pink shorts will go down in Minnesota State Fair history and was far and away the day’s best find….so far. Lest you think that the genuine stunner I alluded to in the intro is over, there’s still something better to come!!!
The last time I was at the smoking area north of the beer gardens, I got my lengthiest sighting of the day from the dark brunette in the pink shorts. I wouldn’t have quite as good of luck on my next pass, but I did catch two sets of couples that included Sightings #56 and #57. The dark blond of the duo didn’t do a lot for me but the dark brunette had a cute nerd thing going that kind of got me going, particularly since she was wearing this very tiny black dress with flower print on it. It was hard to get a good photo since the four of them formed a circle where they stood, but I managed a couple of mediocre ones that at least captured her nerdy cuteness, light brown hair flowing on her bare shoulders, and that microscopic dress. Nothing blew me away about her smoking style though and she was a pretty slow smoker at that. I stuck around for most of the cigarette before cutting out.
And I picked a great time to cut out as it led me to the smoking area south of the bathroom area nearby. A group of five young cuties who looked about 21 (and must have been because they had beers) lurking on the edge of the smoking area and huddling together while a stranger took a photo of them together upon request. As their huddle broke apart, I realized they were lurking near this smoking area for a reason as one of the girls had a see-through backpack with a pack of Marlboro Reds in it. She was the only brunette amidst a group of blonds, and interestingly she spent the next several minutes vaping as she also had a vaporizer. As for the other girls, another pack of Marlboro Reds popped up from out of nowhere and two of them helped themselves. One was the chubbiest girl of the bunch, a blond attractive enough to become Sighting #60 but who nonetheless became elevator music when another of the blonds placed a cigarette in her hand. Sighting #61 also had her share of junk in the trunk and some modestly thick thighs, but not disqualifyingly so, particularly since her face was so pretty and wholesome. I’d rate her as the prettiest girl in the group of the five, and the orange top she wore with dark jean shorts that contrasted nicely with her tan legs helped her stand out amongst them in addition to the pretty face. And I’m almost glad none of the other three smoked because it allowed me to focus on her smoking show, which was amazing, and noticeably amazing the second the flame hit the end of her cigarette and she took a huge inhale off the light-up quickly filling up the airspace in front of her with eruptions of cancerous fumes exiting her facial orifices with the power of an erupting volcano while she was still dangling. I knew I was in for something special here and went crazy with the camera, attempting many photos and scoring with about three or four of them, capturing her in mid-drag where it’s obvious how intensely she’s dragging, a great holding pic where she’s taking a pic of two of the friends in the group, and my favorite, one where she’s belching out one of her monstrous exhales…in mid-drag! Those drags were some of the most intense of the day, to the point where I began sympathizing with the cigarette. What did that poor defenseless cigarette ever do to her that she felt the need to mutilate it with such graphic violence? It made for a short show as she wiped the thing out in about 10 drags, each well-paced and each super intense. She’ll probably struggle to keep the weight down as she gets older but at least in her early 20s this girl was capable of the most glamorous and visually rewarding individual smoking show I’d get yesterday, at least during the daytime hours. This was my fifth favorite sighting of the day.
It’s a good thing blondie delivered for me because little in the next hour would stand out. After 4:00 I began to venture my way to the north side of the grounds one last time, remembering that last week the three teen smoking cuties I saw outside the pet barn building happened at 4:30. If they were indeed employees at one of the commercial booths inside that building and were working that day, perhaps they had a set break time and would be out smoking again. It was worth a shot since I usually head up to the north side that time of the afternoon anyway, but when I got to the smoking area, not only were the teen girls not there, neither was anybody else. I was grumbling under my breath for a wasted trip, but as I looked at my cell phone and noticed it was only 4:29, I decided to hang back a couple of minutes. I did and they were nowhere in sight. Time to cut my losses. But by hanging around another couple of minutes, the timing was right for me to start heading southbound just in time to see a young couple on a bench with freshly lit cigarettes. The early 20s blond who would be Sighting #75 was absolutely gorgeous, decked out in a white tanktop and blue jean shorts and smooth creamy legs crossed beneath them. She really had a standout face, memorably pretty in a way that few smoker girls were yesterday afternoon. She was a nice smoker too, with nicely paced drags and impressive exhales that flowed out of her mouth and nose. The boyfriend looked like a bit of a hippie and while she loosely had that vibe herself, it seemed like she could better. As long as he keeps her puffing away on those cork filter cigarettes in an illegal location though, I’ll be more than happy if they continue to be an item! I was seated on the curb near their bench watching the show and taking several photos. Her face is in profile in most of them and I never quite captured her beauty the way I’d have liked, but I caught her dragging in a couple of them. I stuck around until she finished smoking, dropping the butt to the pavement and crushing it out. They got up to leave a few moments later, and even though she mangled the butt pretty badly with her shoe, I was still able to identify it as a Marlboro Red. I walked on past them at got one final look at her pretty face one more time, not sure if I’d see another smoker girl face that pretty the rest of the day.
Heading south towards my usual fairgrounds hotspots from there I would see a couple of attractive 20-something Asian girls passing a cigarette back and forth before I left the north side. Sightings #76 and #77 were modestly attractive and I stuck around for a few drags. I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten at least one sighting (usually more) of an Asian girl smoking at the Minnesota State Fair for about six or seven years now. The streak stayed alive yesterday.
The 5:00 hour was upon me and I felt as though I was merely matching the pace of the previous week thus far, except with fewer extra-base hits to show for it. If I was gonna see some major improvement in my numbers, it would likely come in the next two hours. And I certainly had a pretty good flurry of activity, although mediocrity was the prevailing storyline. When I passed the smoking area south of the bathroom area, I’d come across one of the slightly more memorable of the past half hour in Sighting #88, a modestly attractive late 20s blond in a green tanktop and jeans smoking next to her boyfriend. As I stuck around for about a minute to watch her, another unconnected couple came up and sat near them that included Sighting #89, an early 30s brunette in jean shorts who at least had a nice body. Neither of these were bad sightings, but nothing was jumping out at me in a way that separates the good days from the great.
Finally I’d get something more memorable in an unlikely place. I passed the smoking area east of the Leinie Lodge with limited and modest reward, but I happened to look across the street at a commercial building and saw a cloud of smoke filter through the air. As I worked my way that direction the crowd of characters didn’t look particularly promising, but somewhere amidst a family dynamic stood this very wholesome ponytailed dark blond in a pink top and jean shorts who looked about 19 or 20…and it was she that was responsible for that renegade cloud of smoke! Sighting #93 wasn’t a drop-dead gorgeous girl, but she had that girl-next-door look about her that has really gotten rare for modern young smoking females. The outfit she was wearing complemented the overall look and made the cigarette she was smoking in front of either her own family or her boyfriend’s family that much more stunning to witness. I had a bad vantage point, especially for picture-taking, but stood across from them in the grass and watched her smoke most of the cigarette. No stylistic flourishes but what a face to see cigarette smoke flow from in this setting. It was getting to be the time in the day where the sun angle ensured photos were more likely to be blurry, as was the case with all but one I got here. The one that did turn out was from far enough away that I’ll have to wait till I download to see if any smoking images can be salvaged. Either way, I stuck around for her entire cigarette, which she dropped to the grass and stomped out. Unfortunately, since the family wasn’t moving after she finished smoking, I had to move with or without a butt ID. It was just too critical of an hour to be waiting for one girl’s butt ID.
The smoking area on the east side of the grandstand is more often than not my most prolific of the day. That was probably true yesterday too, even though the day didn’t produce too many great ones. The only one I would qualify as great would involve the crisscrossing of two unconnected girls bonding over their dependency upon nicotine. First to grab my attention was Sighting #100, a very attractive mid-to-late 20s blond in a red tanktop and jean shorts, her beautiful face showing the early hints of smoker weathering. I could have sworn I saw on my phone that I got a very upclose photo of her when she first lit up, but to my horror I’ve looked the photos over since then and discovered I got nothing. Whatever the case, she stood by herself in the middle of the smoking area and lit up, putting on an exceptional smoking display of long drags and cloudy exhales. But out of the corner of my eye, up came a decently attractive 21ish brunette in a purple shirt advertising “Juanita’s Fajitas”, the nearby food vendor stand where she worked, and a nice-fitting pair of tight black leggings. She lit up to become Sighting #101 and was worth observing herself even if most of my attention was focused on that blond. Luckily, it wouldn’t have to an either-or choice for long as the two of them struck up a conversation. For about three glorious minutes, I was treated to an eyeball-pleasing smorgasbord of drags and cloudy exhales, often coming in the form of talking exhales. The brunette put up a pretty decent show of her own, but the blond upstaged her with volume of exhaled smoke. On one occasion, the brunette cut loose a nice exhale skyward while the blond referenced “her boyfriend” in a talking exhale, with a snootful of spillover smoke blasting in front of her face after that. The show was too mesmerizing to peel my eyes from and attempt to photograph, and I thought I was covered anyway since I thought I got a closeup solo shot of the blond. But it wasn’t meant to be. They finished their cigarettes at almost exactly the same time, tossed both butts in the community ashtray, and then walked away in separate directions amidst a lingering haze of their own toxic exhalations. I was getting my momentum back now with a couple of extra-base hits in a row.
I was well into the 6:00 hour when I’d score my next extra-base hit on the west side of the grandstand in that berm area that in the past has delivered many sightings but has been a little quiet this year….until I saw a mixed-gender cluster up there, with everyone in the group wielding cigarettes. Jumping out at me immediately was a pretty 21ish light brunette who would become Sighting #113 who was seated on the berm, with a shapely young blond in jean shorts standing in front of her also smoking a cigarette who I was certain would make this sighting a two-for-one. Unfortunately when I got up to take a seat a few feet over from them on the berm, I noticed the blond had a badly messed-up face, with most of her lower jaw missing and plenty of serious reconstructive surgery done on her face. Her speech was stunted and clearly life was gonna be a major struggle. I felt bad for her, but my metric is to count girls smoking who I find attractive, and she definitely wasn’t that. Either way, I was gonna settle in to enjoy the show from the light brunette, concerned that nothing I could get on camera would turn out because the sun would obstruct the image at its angle. Worse yet, there were two guys seated to her left that were in my way. This one was a real challenge….but since it was on the second tier of the berm, there was grass behind it and I was able to position myself on the grass, seated at angle towards her that allowed me to miss the sun. Somehow, since she was conveniently seated at an agreeable angle herself, I managed to make it work and at least a few of my high-risk photos from this position took. She was wearing a blue tanktop and jean shorts, at one point propping her smooth, bare legs on the berm in full display for me. Considering the challenging position, she couldn’t have possibly cooperated better. But she wasn’t nearly as cooperative with her smoking, in the middle of an animated chat with the girl with the mangled jaw. She was jabbering and laughing about some immature sorority girl-type banter and not tending to the cigarette, but it was worth the frustration in the end. She realized the cigarette had gone out and placed the half of it that was still left in her mouth, sparking it back up again, an image I captured on my camera, and it was followed by a very impressive smoke rocket exhaled from her lovely face. That drag must have felt and tasted good because she was more attentive to the cigarette after that, and all of her exhales were impressive 12+ inch smoke missiles that sailed in front of her face. I can’t believe I didn’t get busted snapping the photos with all these guys around in such close proximity, but I didn’t. She crushed out the cigarette on the edge of the berm and I noticed it stayed on the cinder block. I had half a mind to stay there just in case she lit another one, but during this key hour of sightings, I didn’t have time to go down a rabbit hole so I just decided to boogie on down to the beer gardens block and then come on back just in case this girl lit up again. And I was off…
The beer gardens block offered a few rewards as it almost always does at this hour, with the best of the bunch being Sighting #116, a mid-20s brunette in a black tanktop and white shorts. White shorts always get me and she was the first smoker girl of the day I had seen wearing them. She was pretty too, but I wasn’t in a great position to take pics in this crowd so I only stayed for a couple of drags. I would see this girl again less than an hour later, without a cigarette but sitting on the curb which really showed off her curves in those white shorts. Even though she wasn’t smoking, I had still planned to take a pic, but as I prepared my camera, some woman on the other side was watching me with my phone and I just knew I was busted. It was time to abort and I did just that. In one respect, it’s a bit of a relief for fair season to be over because it means I’ve survived another year without an inevitably difficult encounter getting busted taking pics. I realize how risky of a compulsion this is but just can’t resist the urge. It’s a high-risk, high-reward proposition, but like all high-risk, high-reward propositions, the risk part is gonna get me sooner or later, and I’m scared for the day when it happens.
I finished that quick loop of the beer gardens block and then hightailed it back to the berm area west of the grandstand just in case my Sighting #113 cutie lit up another cigarette. Less than five minutes had passed and I figured if her group had stayed, she’d probably have lit another cigarette, but it was just as likely that they left. I arrived to find the group gone but was able to approach the now-vacant spot where she sat and her discarded cigarette butt was still sitting on the cinder block where she left. I could tell by the blond filter as she smoked it that it was a Camel Turkish Royal, but had now confirmed it looking at the butt sitting in front of me. And even though this girl was gone, my consolation prize was Sighting #119, a cute late 20s light brunette in a pair of red shorts puffing away at the smoking area with a boyfriend/husband.
It was 6:40 now and the evening’s grandstand lineup was weak so I wasn’t overly confident about getting a ton of great sightings from concertgoers, but I still knew that the area near the grandstand was my best bet. I wandered over to the east side smoking area and was only getting modest rewards there but moving to the cement base encircling the grandstand stairwell I would stumble upon my sighting of the day and the most shocking image of the 2017 fair season. A trio of female smokers included two of the youngest smoker girl faces I’d seen all day in the presence of a chubby mid-30s woman. The mid-30s woman on the right bore a striking resemblance to the young girl on the left so I figured she was her mother, and the girl in the middle didn’t resemble the other two and I suspect was just a friend. My first instinct upon seeing their faces and body types was….the Sighting #122 and #123 girls are no older than 15! I approached the berm from a different angle to get side pics of the blond on the left, who was absolutely adorable and had the sweetest face of any smoker of the fair season. And when I say her face was sweet, I’m talking about the purest cane of sugar from the C & H fields in Hawaii! I saw many teenage faces over the course of the 2017 fair season, almost none of them smokers, but somehow the girl with the face that seemed least likely of anybody to actually smoke was holding an all-white cigarette in her hand and dragging from it. Even in 1997, this would have been an unthinkable sighting, but in 2017 it just seemed too good to be true! Even her clothing was far more conservative than the average mid-teen fairgoer, her blond hair flowing over her shoulders onto a green tanktop with black jeans below the waist framing a petite body. And the teenage friend was nothing to sneeze at either, a brunette with her hair up in a ponytail wearing a white tanktop and medium-blue jeans with holes in the knees. She looked at least a little more like a smoker than the blond, but it defied belief to be standing in observance of either one of them with cigarette in hand. And it was also thrilling to see all three of them had different brands of cigarettes! Mom had some kind of cork filter while daughter had an all-white and the friend in the middle was smoking a Camel Turkish Royal. These very young smokers already had some independence in choosing their own brands rather than being forced to smoke whatever the adults gave them!
My vantage point from there was not perfect, but nobody seemed to notice as I hovered a few yards in from of them, frantically snapping as many pics as I could knowing a good percentage of them at this hour would be blurry. The smoking show was just adorable and every time the cigarette approached that mid-teen blond’s face I marveled. Both girls were very clearly adept smokers, but the blond seemed even more natural at it, and even though the image is blurry, I got a pic of a cloud of carcinogenic filth spewing out of her heartbreakingly cute face. The brunette friend was a little more distracted by her phone but she got some nice drags in too, albeit producing less dense exhales to follow the drags up. And while more of the pics that I scored were blurry than not, I managed three or four that were just perfect, including one of the blond in mid-drag, documenting this insanity close-up. Almost every year, I still manage to get at least one surreal sighting of this caliber, and I studied the girls’ faces as closely as I could as they neared the end of their cigarettes, wondering if it was just the latest example of the modern trend of girls looking younger than they are, but still being unable to imagine it here based on those faces. The blond finished her cigarette first, crushed the all-white out on the cement and dropped it to the pavement below. The brunette had a couple more drags left on hers and just dropped it to the ground without crushing it out. Now I had a problem as it was 10 minutes to 7:00 and I had to meet my parents soon…and these gals weren’t leaving just yet to allow me the butt ID. But thankfully, a guardian angel helped me out, a middle-aged woman who was sitting on the corner of the cement just behind the blond got up to leave, and I was able to sit behind the teen smokers at very close range to wait them out. Doing so, I inadvertently got visual confirmation of their youth from only a foot or so away….
The brunette was looking at her own phone with her face reflecting in it as if taking selfies. Between the youthful image of her face in that phone and the way her legs filled out those holy jeans, I concluded there was no way she was more than 15. But then the blond turned to the friend and mom and I was able to see her face in profile upclose. My breath was temporarily taken away as I saw the features of a middle-school girl. Even 15 years old seemed like a stretch for this one, yet amazingly, she still had the telltale cheekbones of a girl who you could tell has been smoking a while. And she was rummaging around in her purse briefly which allowed me to spot the pack of Marlboro Nxts in there. This was a very special moment, and even though this girl’s mother was overweight and unattractive, I cannot possibly thank her enough for being a likely catalyst facilitating this cute young girl’s addiction to cigarettes. And I’ll just bet blondie was responsible for getting the brunette friend hooked as well. While I now had my brand confirmation, I was still gonna drag this out as late as I could and still meet my parents, and at 6:55 the mother shot off the cement with gusto and said “Let’s go, ladies!” to which the young girls rose to follow, heading south on the grounds. With as big as the crowds were, I was skeptical I’d see them again on the grounds that evening, and I wouldn’t, but as I quickly turned the corner to make official the butt IDs of the blond’s Marlboro Nxt, the brunette’s Camel Turkish Royal, and the mom’s Marlboro Red, all littered below the pavement, it struck me that I had found something of a real-life version of the McPherson family from my “Trevor” stories, the smoking mom (from Minnesota no less) who corrupted her daughters into a smoking habit. It’s amazing to think there’s a family out there in my home state that in any way mirrors the fictional family from my stories, but I may have just had the opportunity to sit within a foot or so of the family that comes closest. My energy was now absolutely electric and I walked away at 6:57 to meet my parents.
While that sighting was playing out, I had a vantage point of the smoking area on the east side of the grandstand and was able to stack up a half dozen more modest sightings, boosting my sightings number up to 130, which is above-average for 7:00. Now it was a busy Labor Day weekend Saturday and I suspected more than 250,000 people were on the fairgrounds, so that was the primary catalyst for my good numbers. I met with the parents and ate a few cookies, springing back to my feet about 10 minutes later for the night shift. I was excited about the evening hours moving forward but have tried to downwardly revise my expectations in recent years as the evening hours are no longer what they used to be less than a decade ago when you inevitably crossed paths with a new smoking hottie every 50 yards. Still I was pretty confident I’d at least do quite a bit better than the previous weekend and 200 sightings was not out of the question.
Sightings continued to roll in at a pretty good clip as they usually during the 7:00 hour, but of course I’d have a hard time finding anything to match the mother with the mid-teen daughters I just witnessed. I wouldn’t pull that off anytime soon but I did get a lovely image with a mid-to-late 20s duo outside the beer gardens block. I first spotted a blond in a light blue shoulderless blouse and jeans holding a pack of Marlboro Reds that I knew she was about to tap into while her brunette friend in a black blouse and jeans was kneeling down to unzip her bag. I suspected she was about to fetch a pack of cigarettes and well and got my confirmation in a couple of moments when she pulled out a pack of Newports. Two young ladies with two separate brands from two packs were both placing cigarettes in their mouths at about the same time to officially become Sightings #133 and #134. I knew from this point forward my photos were more likely to be misses than hits, but I still managed one that wasn’t too terrible where the brunette, who I considered to be the slightly more attractive of the two, was taking a drag. I stuck around for a few drags from each and it was a nice show as they began to chat amongst each other with nicely paced drags and exhales clouding up the crowded beer gardens area.
I progressed towards the east side of the grounds and the horticulture building from there, an area that delivered a few times yesterday and did once again with Sighting #135, an early 20s dark brunette in a white blouse with leggings that nicely framed her shapely lower body. She was sitting by herself smoking but I figured she was waiting for company and would get it in a couple of moments when a wholesome-looking black boyfriend came with beers to join her. It was wonderful to see her be the only smoker in the couple, and putting on a nice show as well with skilled drags and some beautiful combination nose and mouth exhales. I got a pic that’s too blurry to be worth much but it at least captures a general image of her. I stayed for most of the show and thoroughly enjoyed it. Always gratifying to see a relatively wholesome female smoking in the presence of a nonsmoking boyfriend.
I’d cobble together fairly undistinguished sightings in the next 45 minutes as it transitioned from dusk to after-dark. The huddle of teens between the midway and beer gardens block that was vastly diminished last Sunday night was back in full force last night. I only worked my way through it a couple of times because it was so tight and took so much time to get through….and anytime I saw a cloud emerge into the sky, I just knew it was a vaporizer. There were only a few instances yesterday of a fresh-faced teen cutie screwing me out of a sighting by inhaling from a vaporizer rather than dragging from a cigarette, but it was still a few too many and I knew the more I hung around this massive huddle of teens, the more vaping I’d see and the more depressed I’d get. I made a second and final trip down the midway after that, recognizing the diminishing returns that has been producing in recent years as well. It’s crowded to the point of paralysis at points, but whenever I think back to how many great sightings I’ve scored in the midway in years past, and as recently as about three years ago, I just have to make the 15-minute round-trip pilgrimage through there just in case. I managed a couple modest sightings on the midway last night, but it was when I left the midway and ventured back to the beer gardens block that I’d get my first of three extra-base hits in a row around 8:30.
On the southeast corner of the beer gardens stood a group of four early 20s couples, and from several yards away I spotted a pretty brunette and crossed my fingers that she’d have a cigarette in her hand. Not only did Sighting #148 have a cigarette, she was the only one in the group of four to have one. Her whole group looked fairly wholesome, but she looked the least likely of the four to be a smoker yet was the only one smoking. And what a great presentation, her light brown hair flowing onto her blue top with a nice pair of white shorts on the bottom. I love me some white shorts and this girl was worthy of them with a really nice body and face to match. Her show was worthy of the presentation too with very nicely timed drags followed up by the main event of her show, the skyward exhales. It was clear she was forcing her friends to stand outside the beer gardens building so that she could smoke a cigarette, but she at least attempted to return the favor by tilting her head into an almost perfect 9o-degree angle and releasing perfect little streams of smoke into the night sky that never reached the airspace of any of her friends. She would then return to the conversation with the friends, her face glowing sweetness and she chatted with them, potentially still reeking of smoke in a way where her nonsmoking friends could smell the ciggy stench on her breath. I tried to pull off some photos, knowing my chances weren’t great that they’d turn out at his time of night but sadly they ended up worthless. I’m now at the point where it’s a bummer if I walk away from any sighting without some kind of pic and this one really hurt. A couple of her friends already began to filter back inside the beer gardens before she finished the cigarette, which she smoked very close to the filter before dropping to the pavement, crushing it out, and then heading inside herself. I had no problem swooping in and identifying the all-white butt as a Marlboro Light Menthol, my favorite cigarette for aesthetic presentation.
The momentum continued as I progressed to the east side of the beer gardens and would come upon something even better! Seated on the edge of the smoking area was an early 20s auburn-haired babe who I could tell from afar was holding a cigarette and chatting with a guy friend who was about to venture off, perhaps to get another drink. I was still 10 yards or more away from her but could already tell Sighting #153 was massively drunk. Usually that level of drunkenness is a bit of a turn-off but in this case it likely took the sighting to an entirely different level. I got close enough to sit down within about three feet of her and it was only after I got a look at her body that I recognized the magnitude of babe that she was, decked out in a white top and these perfect-fitting pale blue jean shorts that framed the most chiseled lower body I’d seen all day, her crossed legs a work of art worthy of the fairgrounds’ most impressive art exhibits. But as artistic as her female form was, her smoking was at an entirely different level. For all intents and purposes, her all-white cigarette was consumed in one never-ending drag in a way I’ve never really seen a girl do before. I suppose it’s possible she always smokes like this, but I figure the vulnerability of her drunken state was exposing the true state of pleasure she was getting from this cigarette in a way she probably wouldn’t display so openly if she was sober. The cigarette went up to her lips and she took insanely long and intense drags, usually with her eyes fully closed indicating a sexualized pleasure, and she barely had enough time to exhale the smoke before the cigarette was going back to her mouth for even more cigarette rape. The cherry was glowing a permanent smoldering red, at some points glowing red for a good half-inch with as frequently and heavily as she was pulling from that cigarette. She was so out of it and I was so close that I thought maybe some truly memorable photos were attainable here, but the backlighting at this spot was nonexistent and none of the handful of pics I took turned out even a little bit. In only about three minutes, she sent the cigarette to its final resting place after forcing it to suffer one of the most agonizing deaths I’ve ever seen. She crushed out the cigarette on the cinder block and briefly put it on top of the block, giving me some hope she might take off and let me get a butt ID, but instead dropping the butt into her empty beer cup. The boyfriend still wasn’t back and she was still sitting there alone, so I looked her over good before I took off and couldn’t believe how perfect those legs and crotch were, the best I’d seen all day on a smoker girl….
I began to walk away from this sighting, but about 100 yards down the block, I felt this overwhelming urge to walk back there and see if she was still there. Just maybe, with as much pleasure as she had gotten from that last cigarette, she’d decide to light up another….so I started walking back….and it was my best decision of the night. As I approached the smoking area, there was my auburn-haired beauty with the perfect legs and ass extracting a blue pack of cigarettes from her purse to light up another one. I believe the blue pack of L & Ms is L & M Lights. Whatever the case, that’s what she was smoking. Her inebriated state was once again obvious as she fumbled around with the pack, struggling to remove a cigarette. After about 10 seconds of struggle, she pulled it off and inserted the all-white cigarette in her mouth. I hadn’t even realized her boyfriend was back and he was now seated close to where I had been when watching her smoke the first time. He observed her struggle and extended his hand with a lighter, offering to assist. But she sweetly smiled and passed on the offer, showing him the lighter in her hand which she then placed up to the end of her cigarette and fired up. If it seemed like she was having an orgasm smoking the last cigarette, this one was smoked with even more sexualized satisfaction and was taken down again in what was effectively one endless litany of flash-bang drags. The cigarette was never away from her lips more than about three seconds, with her eyes closed for at least half of it, enjoying the warm feeling of carcinogens ingested into her lungs so much that she was about to burst. I was now seated behind her and in the brief seconds that I was able to look away from the cigarette in her mouth, I peered down to that incredible lower body of hers and checked out her ass. I only wish I had seen her in a standing position because I bet she had the ass of the day in those perfectly proportioned pale blue cutoffs. Her drags were so constant and so hard that she often extended her arm to ash on the pavement, always dropping a huge, glowing cherry of red hot ash to the ground before placing it back to her lips for another hard hit. I started to wonder if the boyfriend had a fetish too because he was eyeballing her and watching her smoke just about as closely as I was. Perhaps I got lost in the moment but I have my doubts whether even two minutes passed before she lit up that second cigarette and before she crushed it out. I had half a mind to stay right here and see what else she was up to, but after she put the second butt in the beer cup as she did the first, I decided to take off. I wasn’t gone long, returning to see if she still there no more than 15 minutes later, but she was gone by this time, hopefully not attempting to drive home! It was another case where I was overcome with jealousy for that boyfriend who likely had the honors of peeling off those perfect jean shorts from her chiseled ass, legs, and crotch and fucking her to within an inch of her life when they got home, but honestly the look on her face as she smoked made me wonder if it was possible for sex to even rival the pleasure she got from that cigarette. This was my third favorite sighting of the day and really gave me the burst of adrenaline I needed in the mid-evening.
And my timing leaving that sighting set me up for the next major reward only a few minutes later as I progressed to the Leinie Lodge where 70s southern rock group Foghat was playing at a free concert. I walked to the west side of the concert stage where there’s a bathroom area and doing so led me to a farrow-to-finish sighting of another of the day’s best finds in Sighting #155. Standing alone in the middle of a grassy area several feet in front of the building was this gorgeous ponytailed platinum blond who was wearing a bright pink T-shirt and a pair of pale blue jean shorts that rivaled the crackling sexuality of the previous girl’s jean shorts, with almost as nice of an ass and legs framed by those shorts. Right away, I noticed an unlit cork filter cigarette in her hand and then quickly discovered the pack of Camel Menthols stuffed into the back pocket of her jean shorts. Immediately sensing a bubbly energy to this girl, I hunkered down for a great show and got one when she lit up, taking a deep drag, removing the cigarette from her mouth, holding the smoke for several seconds and then exhaling two downward jets entirely through her nostrils. This girl knows how to make an introduction! And it just got better from there as she turned to the bench leaning up against the Leinie Lodge building and began talking to a middle-aged woman who was clearly her mother. The bubbly energy flowed from her stinky pores in a way that confirmed my original suspicion that this girl was not yet 21. I’d guess she was about 19….yet smoking openly in front of her nonsmoking mother at the Minnesota State Fair. It got even better when someone working with some display was walking near her, fumbling the display frame. The smoker blond turned to mom and gave her a sympathetic look over the woman struggling with the foldable metal display, and she proceeded to walk over there and offer a brief second of unsolicited help, cigarette in hand. Her assistance only lasted a few seconds before the girl returned to where she was standing, which was very close to me and well-enough lit that I managed a few photos that turned out pretty decent despite how dark it was. And the show had only just begun….
She continued to smoke the cigarette with gusto, punctuated by nice drags, solid hold times, and exhales that came more from her nose than her mouth, working her smoked-out respiratory system as hard as it could be worked to expel the content of those menthol cigarettes she so adored. The sighting was also punctuated by regular turns to her mother, saying a few things from afar but never getting close enough that mom would have to choke on daughter’s ciggy stench. It was a truly inspired show and lasted a few minutes before the girl took a seat on the next bench over to mom, sitting down to finish her cigarette where I’d get one more decent holding pic. The girl made pretty quick work of the cigarette with those heavy drags, and I’d guess three-quarters of the exhaled smoke poured out of her nose over the course of the cigarette. I was grateful to have seen the Camel Menthol pack in her pocket because she regrettably leaned down to crush the cigarette out on the pavement and then approached the nearest garbage can to toss it in there. The consolation prize is that she had to walk past me to get to the garbage can so I got to check out her ass, crotch, and gams working those jean shorts again. What an unimaginable late teen sexpot! She went back to sit next to mom and I took off, having scored three great sightings in the last 15 minutes with a glorious hour and a half left on the evening to fetish.
I needed that surge in morale too because it was 9:00 and I’d been walking the grounds for more than 12 hours now on already sore feet. Amazingly, my punctured blister that I attained the previous week was barely noticeable, but every other square inch of my feet were really starting to hurt. It’s a double-edged sword with shoe selection. I went with a sturdy pair of work shoes that have above-average heels. While there are certainly shoes out there that offer better padding, the padding is more likely to produce blisters. The sturdier work shoes are too unforgivingly gruff to produce blisters (unless you have a giant hole in your sock heel like I did the week before!!) but enhance soreness after many hours of walking on cement, so there’s no perfect solution. Still, that last hour and a half was a struggle, particularly since the aftermath of the previous three sightings produced more memorable moments. Interestingly though, the next memorable moment came only a few feet from where the previous memorable moment occurred….just to the west of the Leinie Lodge where Foghat was still performing….
Standing by herself was a very wholesome-looking 22 or 23ish dark brunette in a girl-next-door gray sweatshirt and pale blue jeans. Sighting #170 didn’t look like a smoker, but there she was standing alone with a cork filter in hand. Her smoking style didn’t feature the over-the-top flair of the previous two girls but it was still a pleasure to watch such a sweet-looking girl smoke and recognize by her drags and exhales that she was no beginner or social smoker. I took a few pics as she enjoyed her cigarette with nicely paced drags, and they turned out modestly, much better than I expected given the hour of the night and the lighting situation. I saw a half dozen or so drags before a boyfriend approached her with a beer. Once again, a nonsmoking boyfriend offered to fetch the beer while his adorable and addicted girlfriend tended to her nicotine slavemaster. The two proceeded to walk northward from there and I followed, watching the girl continue to smoke the cigarette and exhale to her left in order to avoid contaminating the boyfriend to her right. She took a final double hit off the cigarette before dropping it to the pavement and not bothering to stomp it out, allowing me to swoop in and ID the butt as a Newport.
With less than an hour to go and feet becoming more sore with every step, I limited myself to a handful of hotspots on the grounds that are typically good for evening sightings, but made the decision after 10:00 to take a shortcut I normally don’t take from Point A to Point B, and it was a great decision that led me to my last marquee moment of the night in front of the giant slide. Three women in their early 30s were sitting on a bench, two white and one black but all obviously part of the same friends group. The two white women were smoking, and while neither of them were bombshells, the Sighting #179 blond and the Sighting #180 brunette were carrying themselves like polished smokers, especially the brunette who was rocking a nice pair of jean shorts on her shapely body and produced some sweet exhales. I took a bench right next to them figuring that it was worth stopping to take a look and give my feet a rest in the process. But seconds after I sat down, another young couple approached them. The guy looked in his early 30s but I’d have pegged his gorgeous and sexy platinum blond girlfriend at about 26. She was a knockout and clearly knew the three women seated on the bench, chatting it up with them while feeding her face with fair food. Her husband/boyfriend quickly lit up a cigarette and I just had a feeling she’d be smoking too as soon as she finished eating her food. I invested about three minutes in her while watching the other two women on the bench finishing their cigarettes….and then it came. She produced a cigarette and got the lighter from the husband, seconds before becoming Sighting #181. I wasn’t confident I’d get good photos but I absolutely nailed a pic of her lighting up, then took the opportunity to enjoy the follow-up from that opening drag, a huge and noxious cloud of airborne smoke. It’s impossible to overstate the impressiveness of the smoke clouds these babes were contaminating the evening air with at the Minnesota State Fair on September 2, 2017, and this sexy blond put a nice ribbon on that pattern with her own great smoking. Then she had one more trigger-tripping trick up her sleeve as she proceeded to sit on the curb with the boyfriend, a position I just love to see a girl in jean shorts take as it advertises her curves so beautifully, the upper portion of her thighs touching the edge of the pavement because the denim on her shorts comes to an end too soon to cover her entire ass while seated. I sat there and watched her continued electric smoking show and waited for the perfect moment to get one more photo, and I nailed it as she was in mid-drag, the cigarette tilted upward at a 45-degree angle as she applied oral pressure to the filter while seated on the curb in this sexy position. That was exactly the closing image I needed to wrap up the 2017 fair season in style.
I only had about 12 minutes left to fetish after she finished smoking, bumbling along on my haggard feet and encircling the beer gardens block one final time and picking up several modest sightings. The same smoking area south of the bathroom area and just southwest of the beer gardens that had come through so many times in the last two weeks produced a duo of late 20s brunettes who would be Sightings #188 and #189, my final two sightings of the night, before I headed back to meet my parents by the Coliseum and exit the Minnesota State Fair for the final time of 2017. My feet were so sore that I was ready to leave, even though staying another hour would certainly not have broken my heart.
I mentioned before that I’m learning to revise my expectations down a little for the evening hours. It used to be that if you blinked you’d miss 10 hot smoker girls, but from a numbers standpoint, getting only 59 extra sightings after the time when I met my parents at 7:00 was down considerably. Still, I got enough extra-base hits last night to where I was not complaining about the quality. Despite getting 31 more overall sightings on the Labor Day weekend visit in 2016, yesterday was a considerably better day and not that much less rewarding overall than the previous week in 2017 which was a very good day on its own right. God I love the Minnesota State Fair! Given the state’s ideology and long-standing antismoking track record, a fetisher may surmise that it wouldn’t be that great of a venue. But I venture to say there’s no place else in America that I could find as many great sightings as I did over two full days than my last two weekend visits to the Minnesota State Fair. Any fetisher who gets off on sightings should visit the place at least once before smoking is officially wiped off the planet.
And so goes to the 2017 fair sightings season, which wraps up with 652 total sightings, a more than 13% decline from the 756 I scored in 2016. Disappointed? Not much….because the quality was much better in 2017. I struggled to compile a worthy top-25 list in 2016 as several entries didn’t seem quite up to the standard of previous year’s entries. This year I have an embarrassment of riches, with a few sightings that won’t make the cut in 2017 that would have made the top-20 let alone the top-25 in 2016. Even my numerical decline is somewhat of a mirage because more than half of my decline comes from the disappointing Indiana State Fair compared to last year’s Missouri State Fair. And since Indiana came through with three top-tier sightings, even my loathing of that venue has been tempered some. Next year, I’ll be headed back to Missouri on the third weekend in August, but this year was the latest reminder that the Minnesota State Fair sits alone at the top of the sightings venue pyramid. As I finish this writeup on Labor Day weekend, it’s downright depressing to know that I have to wait another 51 weeks to go back….but oh what a ride it provided these last two….enough to keep me riding high for a while.
