COUNTY FAIR Box Set of All 50 State Editions

A special limited-edition complete set of 50 individual notebooks, one from each state, packaged in a custom box along with a 6 pack of Field Notes Clic Pens, a “BAND of RUBBER,” and a lovely First Place Ribbon to display next to your Championship Peach Cobbler, or to use as a bookmark in the set. Tied up in twine, the COUNTY FAIR Box Sets are $99 each and make a great gift for kids, or for recording your travels and learning about the U.S. of A. We’ll be using IL, IN, OH, PA and NY on a trip to the Adirondacks in couple weeks. Maybe more if we get lost.

We can’t be sure but it looks like Bellhaven has most of the editions we’ve released. Thanks for the photo. Also, we’re proud to say we were the very first to come off the production line for a new, cool little promo item from our pals at Busy Beaver. You can check it out on the FN Facebook page. More on that soon.

We started the morning at the Onawa Cafe, which only takes cash, but you don’t need much of it to get giant plates of hash browns and perfectly-cooked bacon.

Once the County Fair gates opened, we hauled everything in and began setting up. We’re maybe the first overly design-conscious vendors in the whole of county fair history. As such, we spent way too much time tweaking and adjusting and saying to each other, “Does this look centered? We need to make sure everything is symmetrical.”

However extra time it took us didn’t seem to matter much. Most of the action at the fair right now seems to be down at the 4-H building, where the animal competitions are going on. We’ve had just a few people come, bit they’ve all been here to either check out the winning vegetables or talk to the librarian manning the booth next to ours. Understandable, because she’s very nice. She came over to say hello after we were set up. “So what’s your booth all about?” she asked. We told her and showed her some Iowa editions. She said, “That’s neat.” so now we have our first official endorsement. I think her name is Nancy.

Business should pick up later, once the sun goes down and the demolition derby starts. Right now it’s hotter and stickier inside the building than out in the sun. We found a fan and plugged it in and that helped. An older guy wandered in, the guy who apparently the fan belongs to, and said, “This thing shorts out, so watch it.” It just shorted out a second ago, so we’re back to sweating.

More later.

When Google maps tell you that something is 8 hours away, you’re usually safe to assume that 8 actually means 10. We left Chicago at 9:30 and got in just after 8:00, with just a couple of stops in between. Along the way we saw a rainbow (obligatory rainbow video) and we stopped to take a photo of the Monona County sign along the interstate.

We checked in to the hotel right alongside Interstate 29. Onawa seems like it’s located just smackdab in the midpoint between Council Bluffs and Sioux City and is somewhat larger than you’d expect. Of course most everything closes early (we barely got in for dinner at Suds & Jugs), but even though their lights were out, the storefronts on Onawa’s main street (the widest in the country!) are almost completely full, something that seems like a rarity in the rural Midwest these days.

Before we both dined on Suds & Jugs’ exquisite chicken fingers, we stopped by the Monona County Fair to find out all the details of where we’ll be set up. We parked in the grass and wandered through the rides and the carny-staffed games of chance and into the thick of the fair, bitten by the occasional mosquito along the way. The fair is about a block and a half long. On the side opposite the rides and games, there’s a display of tractors. In between, there are permanently-installed exhibition buildings that house both 4-H projects and vendors. There was a fairly sizable crowd milling around, but most everyone was watching the Outlaw Tractor Pull behind the buildings.

We scoped out the spot they’ve put us in and we think it’ll be perfect. We’ll be sharing a fairly large building with two other attractions: the winning vegetables in the 4-H vegetable growing contest and the Friends of the Onawa Public Library book sales table (which didn’t seem to be staffed). We’re right in between the two, and just across the main thoroughfare from where it looks like they’ll be selling hamburgers, so it’s prime real estate and you can’t miss us. We’ll be setting up early tomorrow and will be there until 10pm, so stop by and say hello.

Steve will obviously edit together a flashy video of the trip once he gets back, but here’s some rough footage if you can’t wait.

As our mailing list already knows, new summer COLORS are on sale! Above is “Alaska,” one of the FIFTY editions available in our “County Fair” series, sold in 3-Packs, via subscription, or as a 50-state box set. More details about the books and how to order can be found here.

Wanna be first to know in the future? Join our mailing list in the top of the left column over there? See it? Good. All we need is your email address, we’ll keep it like a secret.

You’ll also notice that subscriptions are still available (but only a few!) starting with “Packet of Sunshine,” and we’ll announce our Summer 2010 COLORS soon, we’ve gone whole hog again, and we’re sure you’ll love ‘em. As always, be sure you’re on our mailing list for first dibs (top left corner of the site).

Our FIELD NOTES COLORS “Packet of Sunshine” 3-Packs are sold out online.

If you’ve gotta have ‘em, check with your local retailer, or order a COLORS Subscription, there are a few “Sunshine” subscriptions left. Remember, they come with marigold seeds and growing instructions. As always, thanks for your support.

Pre-orders for our Spring COLORS edition, PACKET of SUNSHINE, shipped out Friday and Monday and the sunshine is already spreading to mailboxes around the world.

Thanks for the schloads of kind tweets* and emails. Photos are popping up all over the place, including COLORS subscriber John Abella’s Flickr set that shows off the whole package pretty well.

Three-Packs and COLORS subscriptions are still available!

*Speaking of Twitter, today would be a good day to start following “fieldnotesbrand.”

You’d also have two free 3-Packs of regular FIELD NOTES (one graph, one mixed), not to mention a ton of the extra stuff we throw in each mailing.

Subscribe now with a Packet of Sunshine subscription and don’t miss out on these limited-edition beauties and FIELD NOTES of the future. At the very least, join our mailing list (top of the left column) and find out first about new COLORS releases. Dum-dah-dee-dum! Thanks for your support!