What was supposed to be just a peaceful weekend getaway, turned out to be a little more exciting than my wife and I expected. On our first day in Sacramento, we decided to attend the California State Fair, held at the Cal Expo Center. The day was hot so we waited for the temperature to cool a little before heading out around 6PM. When we got there, everything seemed alright; lots of rides, lots of games, good food and good fun. At a glance, this was your typical state fair, albeit bigger than my native Oregon’s. And even though we weren’t winning anything, we were still having a good time playing games and taking fun pictures. What more could you ask for, right? Well, more fun was just around the corner. Literally!
As our day at the fair was winding down, we headed toward the entrance/exit to call it a day when all of a sudden, a mass of about 500-600 people started running our way! Like a strong river current, we had no other choice but to just go with it. We didn’t even know why we were running but our first instinct was to not get run over and trampled. As we were running, we heard a mix of yelling and screaming… something about a shooting!
“Duck!”
“Get out the way!”
“Get outa my way!”
We were frantic, and my wife more so than I! I have never been around a shooting before and had no sort of “run for your life” kind of instinct so my wife took me by my arm and led me over an embankment and down a short, grassy hill to safety. Amidst the mad dash for our lives, I heard a “whup whup whup” so I looked up into the sky and saw a helicopter circling the area with its spotlight aimed towards the fair grounds, most likely searching for those involved.
When things calmed, I asked a couple girls standing next to us about what just happened and, sure enough, “it was a shooting!” Wow! What a rush! We escaped with our lives and thankfully, no one else was injured or killed that night but it was definitely an experience to remember.
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