It was a beautiful day for a fair — sunny, not too hot and slightly breezy.
At noon Friday, toddlers being pushed in carts by their parents, youngsters wearing baseball caps and funky sunglasses, teens in masks and senior citizens waited to enter the gates at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake to come to the annual event that got canceled last summer because of the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s a smaller fair, being called the Lake County Back to Our Roots Micro Fair, but people were there with smiles on their faces and plans to ride the Ferris wheel, eat corn dogs and funnel cakes, listen to live music, play bingo and view winning entries in the exhibition hall.
The fair opened at noon and was set to run until 11 p.m. It also was scheduled to be open from noon to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.
“I’m so happy they’re doing it this year,” said Nickie Greskovich of Libertyville, about the fair reopening on a smaller scale than normal.
“Everybody needs a little joy. They’re doing a good job of keeping it safe,” said Greskovich, who brought her son, Joe, 4, and daughter, Charlie, 5, to the fair.
“We’re here for lunch and rides with the grandparents,” she said, referring to Judy and Tom Greskovich.
The kids would have cheese pizza, but later on they planned to stop for Joe’s favorite, fried Oreos, and cotton candy.
While making funnel cakes and elephant ears, Mandy Madriaga of Parnell Foods explained that fried Oreos are the beloved chocolate cookies with cream filling dipped in funnel cake batter, deep fried and topped with powdered sugar — a little too sweet for her, but not for the youngsters, she said.
One fair attraction the children didn’t get to see this year was the petting zoo and barnyard filled with livestock. “The kids love getting close to the animals,” Nickie Greskovich said. “But during COVID everyone has to make sacrifices, and we’ll take what we can get.”
That included a Ferris wheel, funhouse, power slide, outdoor tractor rides, carnival games and other spinning, twirling rides that widened the eyes of youngsters, while some parents and grandparents took a pass.
Idris Koncar, 6, held his hand on the top of Hassan, 5, his younger brother’s head, to make sure he was tall enough to get on a ride. Hassan squeaked by and the brothers hoped on the Ferris wheel with their father Joseph. Mom, Suraye Ismael, was definitely tall enough, but she opted to remain on terra firma and watch her family have fun going round and round.
Hassan looked a tad shaken when he came off the Ferris wheel, but he soon joined the rest of his family from Buffalo Grove to seek out more rides.
Carol Dileonardi, her daughter, Andrea, and grandchildren, Joey, 10 and Gia, 12, came all the way from Chicago to the fair. Carol said she prefers the smaller fairs. The Illinois and Wisconsin state fairs require too much walking, she said. She stayed back while Gia and Andrea zipped down the power slide, then they headed into the funhouse with Joey — laughing as they tried to walk in between man-sized punching bags.
Tina and Ron Perkins of Barrington brought their grandchildren, Clara Jacquette, 5, and Parker Jacquette, 3, to the fair with their mom, Amanda. “They came from Denver, and we thought this was something fun to do,” said Ron Perkins.
Tina Perkins loves the fair. “I get excited whenever I go to the county fair,” she said. “I grew up with 4-H and I entered my sewing in many competitions, and I got to go on all the rides.”.
Ron said he’d go on any of the rides at the fair’s carnival, “except for that one over there that’s spinning around.”
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Beyond the carnival rides, people played bingo while a band that would perform soon warmed up and youngsters rode tractors and barrel cars. The Lake County Farm Heritage Association sponsored the tractor and barrel car rides.
“It is fun to get back outside,” said Waukegan resident Roxanne Rissell, a member of the heritage association. She came with her husband, Rob, to help the association showing off old tractors, giving children rides and helping them make rope.
Heritage association member Mary Harroun of Mundelein also demonstrated old-fashioned spinning at a booth. She displayed a 200-year-old spinning wheel that her husband, Warren Young, inherited.
“It’s a work of art. It’s an antique,” she said
Meanwhile, Don Snetsinger, founder of the farm heritage association, rode on a big tractor, pulling youngsters in barrel cans behind him.
“It’s always a happy time when the kids come out here,” he said.