The Great Minnesota Get-Together

Candy: We spent this afternoon and evening at the Minnesota State Fair and it really lived up to its name as a great get-together for Minnesotans.

The fair is held each year for about 10 days at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul, just off Snelling and Como.

On our way into the fair, we saw the travel stables for the widely-known Budweiser Clydesdales and had the unique experience of seeing one of the groomers shaving just about every part of the horse, including its boy parts. Yeah. That was compelling.

From there we headed down food alley (my term for it) and Tim began jonesing for anything he could find that was free. As many of you know, he loves to collect free samples of anything. It doesn't matter to him whether it's a pen, hotel shampoo, plastic bags, lotion, or caps. He is non-discriminatory in his approach to freebies and is definitely an equal-opportunity-collector.

Today he set his sights on locating a free writing instrument if at all possible but unfortunately, after five hours of searching he was still without a company logo pen.

We started our gastronomical experience with a vanilla ice cream cone. You can't go to a Midwestern fair and not eat something made of dairy products. It's just not right.

Then we toured some of the livestock barns, starting with the horse barn. We saw some unusual breeds of equines, including the Norwegian Fjord (photo from the web below) and miniature horses, as well as the standard breeds like saddlebred, appaloosa, donkey, and quarterhorse. I grew up with horses, but haven't really been around them since high school, and it was fun to join the other fair-goers in oohing and ahhing over each horse. The sheep barn was next. As we walked through the barn, they were judging some of the animals. Man, the way those sheep owners trim their animals was pretty cool. Imagine a plush rug that is shaped similarly to a hedge (squared off on the sides and rump) but on a living, breathing, baa-ing sheep. It was pretty neat. Also, nearly all the sheep were wearing hoods and blankets. This sheep looked pretty bored with the whole thing, even though the hood brings to mind a modified version of The Silence of the Lambs. I know, bad joke. Afterwards, we headed over to the cattle barn. It was filled mainly with dairy cows, including guernseys, holsteins, and my personal favorite, brown swiss cows. No, they aren't the ones that produce chocolate milk.

While we were in the cattle barn, the MN State Fair Milking Parlor was in operation, and we watched through the glass as cows were led in, put in their stanchions, and milking machines were attached. I didn't know this, but most cows produce about 6-8 gallons of milk each day. Got milk? We saw lots of temporary tattoos with that saying today.

After that we stumbled across the Miracle of Birth exhibit. It was a barn filled with all kinds of incubators, display pens with bleachers, etc. for viewing recently-born animals and poultry. This newborn sheep was especially cute.

There were several sows with 8-10 piglets each. Boy, were they cute. We also saw ewes that had given birth to one, two, or three baby sheep, several newborn calves, some baby bunnies, and even turkey chicks.

It was probably the most-packed exhibit of the fair with tons of baby strollers everywhere. It was like toddler alley, with baby humans (and adults too) watching baby animals and baby animals watching back. We walked for quite a while just looking around at things and trying desperately to find something else free for Tim to put in his (free) U of Minnesota backpack with his (free) WCCO bag. Finally, we came across the Promos on Patch section of the fair, supposedly packed with freebie goodies.

Unfortunately, the only freebie they were passing out while we were there was Spam on a pretzel stick. Tim, so eager to have anything free that he would even eat "spiced ham" as the promoter optimistically called it, happily enjoyed his (free) sample. The other souvenir Tim collected today was a sample of Udderly Smooth balm from the cattle barn. Yep. It was free.

We then rode the sky ride across the fairgrounds. It's a cable car system that you can ride one-way or round-trip, and provides the best view of the fair possible.

We decided it was about time for some more food on a stick. That's something that the fair is known for. You can find just about anything on a stick. Some of the more exotic things we saw today included teriyaki ostrich on a stick, spaghetti & meatballs on a stick, deep-fried candy bars on a stick, of course pickles on a stick, fudge puppies-belgian waffles dunked in chocolate on a stick, and the State-Fair-famous Pronto Pups, (you guessed it-corn dogs on a stick).

Of these items we sampled the pronto pups (as good as I remembered them from my college days) and the fudge puppies, then headed to the Pet Center in hopes that we would find lots of cute puppies and maybe even some kittens.

However, there were only a few dogs around and our favorites (of course) were the two beautiful yellow labs, Banker and Breezer. We decided to sit for 20 minutes or so and wait for the St. Paul Police K-9 unit demonstration. The demonstration included eight beautiful, well-trained German Shepherds and their police partners. Each dog was brought and put through one of four tests that included attacking on the arm, the leg, and general obedience behavior.

It was fun to watch even though the policeman who was on the microphone for the entire demo was impossible to understand. After the demonstration, we decided to support the K-9 foundation by purchasing one of their lovely dog collars for Chase.

On our way out of the fair for the evening, we we trying to determine the best thing to eat to encapsulate our fair experience, and suddenly saw numerous people enjoying roasted corn on the cob. We found out where it was being sold and got an ear each. I think that might have been the best ear of corn I've ever tasted.

"It was good," said Tim.

The last thing we saw before leaving the fairgrounds were the famous Minnesota Dairy Princess butter carvings. Sounds funny, right? Well, it is, kind of.

Somebody sculpts the head & shoulders likeness of each of the dairy princesses from around the state in a 90-pound block of butter. Each likeness is put on a rotating dais kept in a 38-degree-cooled glass booth so that people can observe these temporary dairy sculptures. Only in Minnesota.

All in all, it was a really great day, from the food to the people watching to the walking to the drive home.

Tomorrow, I have a phone interview with that University in Maine and need to try to finish the website I'm helping to develop for a friend back in Ohio.

Tim says, "I'll probably wash and clean the car out for the 3rd time in the past 6 days." He's probably right. Maybe he'll even want to mow the yard.

I've teasesd him a lot in this post, but you all know how much I love him and how much fun we have together. Today was no exception.

If your state has a state fair, we definitely recommend joining the get-together.

Have a great Wednesday.