Thanks to Indianapolis’ NBC affiliate WTHR, we can pretend we’re Olympians! Everyone loves the Olympics, we’re told!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

Our photo galleries typically showcase the places we’ve been, the things we’ve seen, or the events we experienced — i.e., the memories I want to retain that are also hopefully interesting and/or useful to anyone else in the universe besides just Anne. Sometimes we forget to take pics of each other, or I simply skip posting them because I already know what we look like. That’s the exact opposite of 99% of the entire internet; hence our perennially low traffic stats, apparently. I don’t get the whole “me me me” thing that constitutes a viable career for some folks, but I’m told that’s totally a thing and that an entire Insta-feed of selfies is in fact a form of psychologically responsible behavior and they have the tax forms to prove it.

For once, let’s give in to peer pressure from internetters half our age and compile an entire gallery of us and only us. As it happens, during our fairground day-date we wound up taking more photos of each other than usual (or having strangers snap the two of us), so here’s what it looks like when we’re enjoying each other’s company without worrying what anyone else thinks of us. Please enjoy! Smash those buttons! Share with your 50,000 nearest friends! If you don’t, you’re a judgmental, ageist hypocrite who enables body-shaming and you’re on the same side as the shallow, dump-worthy exes in every rom-com ever! It’d sure be a real shame if your S.O. ever found out! Cheers!

This photo-op spot has been around a while, but this year they stuck a concrete planter on the end so no one can spell “FART” anymore. Anne the rebel chose to spell “FAIR” in Welsh.

Alternate pic of the cookie butter elephant ear before tasting and ODing on sugar-drenched flour with sugar/flour pebbles.

I tried not to be self-conscious about my own buckteeth while Anne hung out with this beaver sentry at the DNR Building.

Anne the dancing corn dog.

Anne every time she meets John de Lancie at a convention.

The Newfields space at the Harvest Pavilion (which we’ll cover in Part 3) featured a “Play Patch” for kids. At 10 a.m. on a school day, the child-at-heart woman I love, age 53, my wife of 20 years, had plenty of elbow room to balance on logs…

…or excitedly run a lap around a giant tamale maze while yelling, “Yaaaaay!” to show the preschoolers and home-schoolers what fun looks like.

At the Illuminate exhibition (which we’ll cover in Part 4) Anne spins around in a chair designed specifically not to let humans sit still or flatly or with any dignity.

Also at Illuminate, I do my best to impress a flamingo.

My lost Supernatural audition tape. “A bit much,” they said.

I already posted the “Shark Attack” drink, but this is honestly my favorite solo pic of the day.

Our annual goofy pic at the Glass Barn’s green-screen photo booths. The lack of punctuation is KILLING me.

If you made it this far, thank you! Please enjoy the one (1) authentic selfie Anne took that day as we rode the shuttle from the northeast corner back to Main Street. After a seven-hour escapade, by this time our aging, pear-shaped bods were near collapsing.

To be continued! Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Part 1: Our “Taste of the Fair” Tour
Part 3: Where the Art Museum Meets the Chainsaw
Part 4: Land of the Glowing Giants
Part 5: Food for Displaying, Not Devouring
Part 6: The Year in Lego
Part 7: The Year in Antiques
Part 8: The Year in Art
Part 9: The Rest of Our Day