The Great Minnesota Get Together

Right before moving, Jack and I decided to make a visit to the Great Minnesota Get Together-- The State Fair!  It had been longer than we wanted since we had seen each other in person, so this was a much needed date day.  And actually, we went on one of the nicest days-- relatively cool, sunny, and breezy all day long.

One of the first things that I made Jack do with me was climb to the top of the ranger tower that is set up near the DNR booth.  It's just... I like climbing up tall things.  I did a lot of that in Europe.

As you can see, pretty much everyone and their mother also decided that it was a great day to visit the fair that day.  This makes for a lot of great people watching.  We didn't do this, but I heard that there was State Fair People Watching Bingo with things to find like, someone with blonde dreadlocks and someone with five kids or things like that.  The reason why I bring this up is because I saw the most stereotypical country boy and I just need to tell the world about it.  This guy was wearing jeans with a big belt buckle, a plaid shirt, and when he spoke, he had a thick Minnesota country accent complete with a "Wooo-hooo!" associated with a cowboy in the west.  Holy cow.  I can't make this stuff up and apparently neither can the writers or directors of any cowboy book or movie ever.

Next we visited the Miracle of Birth barn so that I could see baby animals and their mamas.  It's possible to watch live births with the cows and pigs and sheep there, but I've never seen more than the video footage.  Birth is such a fascinating process.  I know that a number of people think it's really gross and would not care to see it themselves, but... I just feel like you have to appreciate what the females of the world have to go through in order to perpetuate whatever species they belong to.  And to think that humans willing go to many lengths to conceive and carry their babies to term... just... wow.

Jack and I did a lot of walking and looking.  Just walking around and nearly running over or getting run over by strollers and people who are bigger than you, it's easy to get the feel for just how many people are at this place with you.  And then you get pictures like this and you think holy.... expletive.  Just look at how far the crowd of people stretch down this road.

One of our favorite things to do while we're at the fair is go on the Sky Ride.  You sit on this ski lift chair and you can ride over the fair.  It's a nice way to take a break from walking and also figure out what other things you'd like to see in other parts of the fair.

Some of the other things that we saw and did was go to the Environmental building where I immediately saw my new favorite form of camping:

I can't tell you how cute I think this trailer camper thingy is and how much I want to spend a week living out of it.  We also saw a tiny house which I absolutely loved.  I am obsessed with tiny houses.  You don't even know, because I haven't talked about it on here before.

We saw this really neat kinetic sculpture in the art building that simulates the movements of ocean waves.

I can't talk about the State Fair and not talk about the fair food.  We discovered a little trick this time around so that we could eat a lot of food in one day.  The trick is this: split your food.  For example, I wanted to try friend pickles.  I'd never had them before and I was intrigued.  But instead of Jack and I getting a small tray each, we got one and shared that food.  So we did a lot of tasting and we got to try and eat a lot of different kinds of food without feeling like crap at the end of the day.  It was really great.  The picture above was my dinner-- a wild rice cheese burger.  Minnesota is known for its wild rice and this burger, also something that I hadn't tried before, was freaking delicious.  I'd love to learn how to make this at home.  Someday I will.

Okay, I'm curious.  If you live in another state, I especially want to hear from you.  In Minnesota, part of the State Fair is selecting the winner of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way pageant (?) winner and then she gets her head carved into a 20 lb block of butter.  As my mom said, "What a waste of butter."  Also, seeing that much butter, and there are several blocks in this refrigerated rotating room, is just nasty, even when you were born and raised in a state partially known for its dairy (perhaps behind Wisconsin, but who's counting?).  Is this a thing at other State Fairs too or is this a kooky Minnesota thing?

After we got our ice cream cones (a must... ice cream just tastes better at the State Fair.  I don't know why) and picked up Jack's family a bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies (what?  You can freeze them and they last all year!), we decided that this was a good end to the day.  We hopped on the bus which would take us back to where we parked our borrowed car.  It was the end to a very good day and a welcome reprieve right before our big move.

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude