One Crazy Cattle Drive

One Crazy Cattle Drive

COURTESY OF ALAMEDA COUNTY FAIR

Cows to romp down Pleasanton’s Main Street.

It’s a return to the bygone days of the Wild West for the Alameda County Fair this season. Before the Gold Rush, Pleasanton was a rough-and-tumble frontier settlement, the so-called “most desperate town in the West,” where fruit farmers and cattle ranchers rubbed shoulders with bandits and rustlers. The Alameda County Fair pays homage to those wild roots this year, when a posse of real life cowboys and cowgirls transforms Pleasanton’s Main Street into a genuine frontier cattle drive, wrangling more than 150 live steer through the city streets. The cattle drive, a first for the fair, marks the opening on June 16, beginning at 10:30 a.m. at the corner of Main Street and Stanley Boulevard.

The fun doesn’t end there. Brave fair-attending souls can test the utmost limits of what foodstuffs can be breaded and deep-fried at the food court, and KCBS’s Liam Mayclem, aka The Foodie Chap, hosts the ultimate showdown of bizarre and outrageous fair food concoctions at Snackdown Fryday on the grandstand stage on June 23. Or take the edge off at the Sip, Savor & Wager Wine Festival on July 1 or the Red, White & Brew Fest craft beer festival on June 24.

Through it all, enjoy live music at the Big O Tire concert series, which includes performances from stellar acts like Sugar Ray, Wynonna, Sheila E, Clint Black, and Con Funk Shun. The fair has gained a lot of new attractions over the years—like the demolition derby, the Chair-O-Plane, and the Tilt-A-Whirl—but the core of the institution remains the same: It’s a time for friends and families to come together for food, fun, and frolic.

June 16-July 9, 11 a.m.-11 p.m., $10-$15, Alameda County Fairgrounds, 4501 Pleasanton Ave., Pleasanton, Annual.AlamedaCountyFair.com.

 

Published online on June 6, 2017 at 8:00 a.m.