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While thousands of visitors to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair sweated as the mercury topped 90 degrees Sunday, three dozen families of 4-H die-hards relaxed in the lap of modest luxury along the back of the Gaithersburg fairgrounds — a village of campers, trailers, Winnebago's and RVs lined in a neat row.

For more than a week, families live in this little-noticed scene, where parents and grandparents rekindle decades-old friendships from fairs past and the next generation of 4-H'ers takes a respite from the heat and from monitoring their prized animals.

The $30,000 that Poolesville resident David MacKenzie plunked down for his 40-foot RV a few years back has been worth every penny.

Little did the self-professed city boy from Bethesda know what he was getting into when his son Sean, 18, and daughter Megan, 16, joined the 4-H sheep and swine club a few years ago. There sat dutiful dad, planted on a bench keeping watch over Sean's hogs in the heat, sweating like, well —

"Sweating like a pig," MacKenzie, 50, said Sunday, relaxing outside his RV. "After that, I said, ‘Shoot, we're buying one.'"

Camping at the fair is an annual rite for Michael Huntt and Roy Gregory of Laytonsville, boyhood friends from 4-H who park their RV next to MacKenzie.

"You come back to your camper and it's your house. You got your gallon of milk, you've got your food, you don't have to run down to get a soda," said Huntt, 44. "We're all out sitting here, three families, living together for a week. It's like three bedrooms, and this is our living room," he said.

Where the heart is

Eighteen long, hot hours are the norm for 4-H families with children competing steers, swine, sheep or goats. They rise at 5 or 6 a.m. to take the steers for their morning wash and brush. Next come the pigs, then checking again on the steers, back and forth all day between the barns and stops at RV row to squeeze in a shower or a snack.

Well-worn work boots and pint-sized sneakers are lined next to the welcome mats in front of the Magaha family's three trailers.

The down-home taste of comfort is a far cry from when Rinnie Magaha started with 4-H in 1978. Back then, club members slept on bales of hay and straw beds in the barns, a raucous scene that so often stretched past 3 and 4 in the morning.

These days, campers are hooked up to the fairground's electrical and sewer systems. The only real letdown has been that Rinnie forgot the digital converter and the television does not work, he said.

"This is the way I camp: microwave, air conditioning," said the 42-year-old from Poolesville, who sets up his camper with the families of his sisters Robin Lemarr and Holly Henderson.

Arranging the setup for a clan of 15 is a massive chore, said family matriarch Harriet Magaha, 63, as she relaxed Sunday, saving energy for the hectic week of exhibitions.

"We're a close family anyways, but not like this — toward the end of the week, you've had enough," she joked. "It's a lot of work. But the love of the fair, the excitement the kids have — it's worth it."

With his four children competing 15 swine and seven steers this year, Rinnie spent a few minutes in one of the recliners as Darby, the family's Jack Russell terrier, dozed in his lap and his father regaled the family with fair lore and stories of 4-H.

It has been half a century since Ron Magaha came up through 4-H. He served as chairman of the fair and president of Montgomery County Agricultural Center Inc. After decades alongside the hundreds of volunteers he said make the fair what it is, the 64-year-old from Beallsville is slowing down this year to savor his four grandchildren's experience.

"It's funny about the fair; it gets in your blood," he said. "… It gets tiresome, the days get long, and you get to fussin' at one another, what have you. But at the end of the week, you think, ‘Man,' — You know?"