Do you and the kids need a little break while attending the fair? Why not take a load off and listen to a story?

This year, for the first time, storytellers are being offered at the fair. They are in the Folk Festival tent most evenings, sponsored by the state Department of Cultural Resources.

Tonight, Braima Moiwai, the Two Bells and Ella Stewart will be telling stories from 7 until 8.

The schedule for the rest of the fair:

Monday -– Ray Mendenhall, 6 to 7 p.m.

Tuesday -– Priscilla Best, Charles “Wsir” Johnson, 6 to 7 p.m.

Wednesday -– Willa Brigham (host of television’s "Smart Start Kids"), 6 to 7 p.m.

Thursday -- No storyteller

Friday -- Bill Friedman, 7 to 8 p.m.

Saturday -- No storyteller

Sunday, Oct. 26 – Willa Brigham, Beverly Burnette and Baba Jamal Koram, 7 to 8 p.m.
 

One of the great guilty pleasures of the State Fair is eating an artery-clogging funnel cake or fried candy bar. But there are far too few places to sit while you eat.

The assembly-line restaurants have seats, but naturally they're reserved for patrons. Benches in the main food-service areas would help. You could never install enough of them to seat every eater — and if you tried, you'd block too much pedestrian flow. But a few here and there couldn't hurt.

There's room, too, for bleachers in front of the Expo Center.

Failing that, nature offers help in some spots. It's not awful, after all, to sit on the roots of a sturdy oak as you polish off a funnel cake coated in powdered sugar, cinnamon, or chocolate.

The trees don't mind. The ants don't, either.

The drought is over, and that means the big waterfall in front of Dorton Arena is back.

The cooling mist and thundering sound of the waterfall has been missing for more than a year, as the N.C. State Fairgrounds turned it off to conserve water during the drought that began last summer.

The fairgrounds staff says the waterfall does recycle the estimated 60,000 gallons it pumps over the wall at 18,000 gallons a minute, but the fine mist it puts off evaporates 2,000 to 3,000 gallons a day. When the water level in the pool below dips to about 16 inches, a valve opens and pumps in more water.