There are two places in the Commercial/Education building where you will always see a line during the North Carolina State Fair. The first one is the House-Autry Mills booth, where you can find yummy samples. The second is a line of people looking at the entrants to the cake contest.

The cakes are always wonderful to look at but they seemed especially good this year. The Rubik's Cube cake made me laugh, and the brown and gold cake was just amazing. There's plenty of good reason to head over to that display and just stop and hang out for a while.

But when many people are done looking at that display of cakes and taking pictures, they walk away! And that drives me crazy because I just want to yell at them, "STOP! YOU'RE MISSING HALF THE CAKES!"

Okay, maybe not half. But if you go to the cake displays, turn around, and then walk over to the white upright shelf units, you'll find the junior cake decorating contest entries. Don't let the "junior" fool you. Some of these entries are amazing! For decorative cakes there's a smaller, fancy cake inside the white case. There's a burger and fries and a racked set of pool balls. But the one I liked best was the first-place winner: a box of chocolates! There was even writing on the top of the "box" and a half-eaten chocolate set outside.

Are you going to be at the Fair this final weekend? Going to take a look at the cakes? Don't forget; when you're done looking at the display against the wall, do a 180 and head back into the white upright shelf units to make your cake viewing complete.