We are pooped...even after a family nap this afternoon we are all still tired. We did indeed head over to the "event not to be missed" this morning and had alot of fun. We rose early and caught the 9am bus to the fairgrounds (an aside: Tyler had an especially tender moment with Greta on the bus as she snuggled up to him for a nice nap on the way to St Paul). Boy howdy did the fair not disappoint. I'll give you a few highlights & let the pictures tell the rest of the story.
First of all, you have to appreciate both the size of the fairgrounds & the number of people (on a Monday morning no less!) that make up the MN St fair experience. Rides that looked strikingly familiar to our old NJ Boardwalk haunts (ahh the Moby Dick!), farming equipment everywhere, and the food....well, lets just say if it can be battered and deep fried it will be served at the fairgrounds. As well, the whole "on a stick" thing is BIG at the fair: corndogs on a stick, walleye on a stick, key lime pie dipped in chocolate on a stick. Truly a gastronomic extravaganza. And for the record, I saw more mullets in MN than I've ever seen in AL.
There are a number of large exhibits at the fair. One of our favorites was the horticulture building which housed the entries/winners of the "Crop Art" contest. That's right, pictures made with seeds, corn kernels, etc. Now, I was expecting these things to be pretty rudimentary but people went all out with this stuff. Our favorite was a crop art portrait of Tom Selleck (well, that and the portrait of Dick Cheney labeled "the root of all evil"). I never knew such contests existed... We also went over to the dairy building and checked out the butter bust of this year's Dairy Queen. Yeah, I'm not joking. This poor girl had to sit in a freezer while someone sculpted her in a monstrous slab of butter. Wow.
To round out our fair experience we stopped into the livestock warehouses. A definite highlight was stopping by the pigs to check out "Pretty Ricky," the largest boar in MN. He tips the scales at 1200 lbs, so as you might imagine he lays around alot. Only slightly less disturbing was the sow nursing her piglets in the next stall...Tyler kept elbowing me and giggling while telling Greta not to get any crazy ideas. Tyler also thought it was poor form for all of the BBQ stands to be stationed right outside the pig arena. True...but the smell of Pretty Ricky was a definite deterent to eating his bretheren, so maybe he's got the last laugh after all.
We leave Friday to visit Bamagramma & Bamagramps and *hopefully* to meet Greta's first cousin Evelyn. We'll update you on our trip when we get back!
First of all, you have to appreciate both the size of the fairgrounds & the number of people (on a Monday morning no less!) that make up the MN St fair experience. Rides that looked strikingly familiar to our old NJ Boardwalk haunts (ahh the Moby Dick!), farming equipment everywhere, and the food....well, lets just say if it can be battered and deep fried it will be served at the fairgrounds. As well, the whole "on a stick" thing is BIG at the fair: corndogs on a stick, walleye on a stick, key lime pie dipped in chocolate on a stick. Truly a gastronomic extravaganza. And for the record, I saw more mullets in MN than I've ever seen in AL.
There are a number of large exhibits at the fair. One of our favorites was the horticulture building which housed the entries/winners of the "Crop Art" contest. That's right, pictures made with seeds, corn kernels, etc. Now, I was expecting these things to be pretty rudimentary but people went all out with this stuff. Our favorite was a crop art portrait of Tom Selleck (well, that and the portrait of Dick Cheney labeled "the root of all evil"). I never knew such contests existed... We also went over to the dairy building and checked out the butter bust of this year's Dairy Queen. Yeah, I'm not joking. This poor girl had to sit in a freezer while someone sculpted her in a monstrous slab of butter. Wow.
To round out our fair experience we stopped into the livestock warehouses. A definite highlight was stopping by the pigs to check out "Pretty Ricky," the largest boar in MN. He tips the scales at 1200 lbs, so as you might imagine he lays around alot. Only slightly less disturbing was the sow nursing her piglets in the next stall...Tyler kept elbowing me and giggling while telling Greta not to get any crazy ideas. Tyler also thought it was poor form for all of the BBQ stands to be stationed right outside the pig arena. True...but the smell of Pretty Ricky was a definite deterent to eating his bretheren, so maybe he's got the last laugh after all.
We leave Friday to visit Bamagramma & Bamagramps and *hopefully* to meet Greta's first cousin Evelyn. We'll update you on our trip when we get back!
