Motocross for the X Games crowd

It was the perfect price for a mini-vacation: Free.

Well, almost.

Susan Neu, 65, drove up from Daly City to get away for a few days, staying with a friend and on Tuesday hitting the Sonoma County Fair on opening day.

The two-week event began with a free day for seniors -- a welcome respite from a summer of rising costs that have deflated wallets, particularly of those living on fixed incomes.

"It's awesome; absolutely breathtaking," said Neu, marveling at the fair's most popular exhibit Tuesday, a structure built of 100,000 toothpicks.

"This is worth seeing by itself even if there was nothing else to see," she said.

There was plenty to see at the fair, in its 72nd year, including a new ride that blasted classic rock to lure younger crowds that later would fill the grounds and Chris Beck Arena for a motocross performance by X Games veterans.

The roar of motors and cheers of country music fans at the Heidi Newfield concert, also at 8 p.m., were in contrast to the fair's quieter first afternoon, which highlighted a growing shift toward more frugal living.

Its first-ever Sustainable Sonoma tent was crowded and unique, an almost out-of-place presence in the whirlwind livestock/fried food/rides/contest-infused world of county fairs.

The tent offers two talks, Drive Less & Save and Solar 101, each fair day.

Nearby, the food court was packed with aficionados of spaghetti, fries, pizza, enchiladas, teriyaki, gyros and funnel cake.

But Louise Quintero, 40, of Santa Rosa brought salami and bread to make her three children sandwiches. And, also for the first time, she bought presale carnival discount coupons for $15.

"It's a bargain," compared to the $25 many were paying for unlimited ride wristbands, she said as she watched her daughter on the Cliff Hanger ride.

Recent county fairs in rural areas of New York, Illinois, Indiana and Colorado have reported dips in attendance, and some have reported costlier ride operations and fewer vendors because of diesel prices.

"It cost us $5,000 more to get here from Del Mar because of the diesel; that's almost 550 miles away," said Joyce Hutchins, shaking her head as she operated the new "Fighter" ride.

Her company, Flight to Mars Inc., also operates the Storm, which it usually takes to a dozen fairs a year, she said. But 2008 probably is "not going to be a record year," she said.

Entertainment is often the first trim to be made from family budgets. And attendance has declined at the Sonoma County fair during the past few years, with numbers dropping slightly below 320,000 last year.

But Tuesday morning hinted at renewed interest as hundreds, albeit mostly seniors, crowded the gates.

"I would hope the fair is a big draw this year for families," said rancher Jim Mickelson, 49. "We're staying close to home instead of going on vacation."

He runs the Sonoma Mountain Herefords family ranch in Santa Rosa. At the fair cow barn Tuesday he used a blow-dryer on a freshly washed heifer before clipping its copper hair.

His family is showing eight of their 400-head herd today, and Mickelson hoped they might lure more people to his ranch to buy cows for breeding.

The cost of hay has doubled in two years to $225 a ton, and grain costs are "through the roof" because of corn being used to produce ethanol, he said, up 60 percent to $285 a ton.

"We just can't afford to feed like we used to," he said. And that has meant selling more cattle.

Even 4-H and FFA youth weren't unschooled in the rising cost of raising livestock.

"It's getting a bit more expensive" to raise sheep, said 15-year-old Cooper Maloney. But it hasn't stopped him. He's showing two sheep at the fair that were raised on his family's apple farm in Sebastopol.

In the past, Maloney said he has sold sheep to bidders from stores including Pacific Market in Sebastopol. He has even tasted the meat of a sheep he raised.

"It was good, but it was weird that it was my lamb," he said. "It was alive a month before."

Yet his favorite part of the fair, by far, is the sugar-loaded, cinnamon roll stand.

It's a shared passion that also brought Ron Dreyer, 76, of Santa Rosa to the fair. That and the toothpick exhibit depicting San Francisco.

"It's in front of me, yet, I just can't believe it," he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Shadi Rahimi at 521-5280 or shadi.rahimi@pressdemocrat.com.