COALTON — Sleeping in a horse trailer, getting up at first light, scrubbing up at the cattle wash station, and sweating through the July heat are all part of the Boyd County Fair for families who stay there all week.

Taking vacation days to do it and spending significant parts of those days working on the grounds is what the grownups do. Mucking out stalls several times a day and caring for their animals keeps the kids busy.

They also have time to socialize. Over the years families who camp at the fair develop strong bonds, said Dennis Gumbert, whose family will hardly see the outside world until Sunday.

The Gumberts are among the families whose kids are avid exhibitors and who immerse themselves in the fair every year. Gumbert, a lab technician for the Greenup County Environmental Commission, his wife Tammy, a cafeteria worker at Crabbe Elementary, and their daughter Katlyn, a 14-year-old freshman this fall at Paul Blazer High School, think of the hot, dusty fairgrounds as their home for the next few days.

This is their fourth year camping at the fair and they have set up their headquarters in a campsite set aside by fair management for exhibitor and volunteer camping: a popup trailer, a canopy next to it to shade their outdoor kitchen (a toaster and mini-refrigerator), and a horse trailer equipped with a couple of cots.

Katlyn shrugged off a suggestion that a week back home in Westwood might be at least a bit cooler and closer to her friends’ houses. “Being out here, you have all the time you want to ride horses and be with the animals,” she said, lounging in a folding chair at the family campsite.

Fair kids like it that way because they all are animal lovers, she said. And besides, her best friends are here, including her 12-year-old cousin Tanner Henderson, who just that moment strode up and plopped down in Katlyn’s lap to join the conversation.

They both have horses at the fair. Katlyn has two, an American paint named On a Jagged Rocket and a palomino named Amy. Tanner’s quarter horse is named Amazing Grace but she calls her Gracie.

Their other best friend, Tiffany Smallridge, 12, said she would be in the barrel race on her horse named Daisy Duke. Tiffany also is spending the week on the grounds and the other two girls said she is part of their fair family.

The girls rise early, tend to their animals and clean stalls. Katlyn also shows rabbits and chickens so she takes care of them too.

There are showers for fair families to use, but when the girls want to wash their hair they head over to the outdoor cattle wash station with bottles of the same shampoo and conditioner they use on their horses.

Dennis Gumbert also gets up early and finds some volunteer task to keep him busy. On Sunday, for instance, he roamed around picking up trash and then cleaned rest rooms.

Gumbert is lucky this year; he thinks he will only have to take one vacation day during the run of the fair. Some years he takes more.

His other chores include keeping the campsite tidy, making runs for ice and other supplies, and checking in at home occasionally to care for their other animals.

More important, he and all the other fair parents serve as sort of an extended family and keep an eye on each others’ kids. It is part of the natural affinity camping families have for one another, an affinity made stronger over the years.

And there is always the occasional escaped animal; Gumbert said when he hears the ruckus he rolls out to help. Last year it was a couple of cows, this year it was goats.

He doesn’t worry to much about the kids. “Kids that do this don’t grow up and get in trouble,” he said.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.