It might seem like I made up the clever title of this blog, but it was the great marketers of the
Minnesota State Fair aka The Great Minnesota Get Together.
John and I visited the annual convergence in the midst of a heat wave. The temps here have been in the 90s all week with humidity at 50-60%. That's dang hot. Apparently not hot enough to keep us away from fried foods and loud music.
The fair is much bigger than the Colorado fair (sorry, friends) and more interesting than the Texas fair (sorry, family). Over
100,000 visitor peruse booths and entertainment every day during the 12 day celebration of everything Minnesotan.
Fun fact: Over 450 types of food are sold at 300 booths.
With a fair app downloaded on my phone, we hopped on the bus after work ready to explore. I took the obligatory first-fair-experience pic at the gate and then we headed straight for the fried food. My choice: a Pronto Pup. As a non-native midwesterner, I didn't know what the hell a Pronto Pup was until a few weeks ago. I visited the Dakota County Fair with some co-workers. We were checking on the recycling containers but, of course, we had to get a snack. A Pronto Pup, so I'm told, is similar to a corndog but instead of a cornmeal outer layer it's made of half cornmeal and half flour. Before serving, the vendor brushes ketchup or mustard all over it and hands it over. It's delightful!
Next up: a whole building dedicated to environmental stuff called
The Eco Experience! Inside were displays for public transit, wind and solar energy, science research for new materials, green building info, and recycling. I could have spent the rest of the evening here if John wasn't getting hungry.
We walked around the fair for the next three hours and saw crafts in the Creative Activities Building; plants in the Ag Building; semi-wildlife in the Division of Natural Resources building; and education booths in the Education Building. We also saw Hanson--that's right, HANSON--at one of the free stages. Mmm ok. In between all this fun I had a peanut butter and chocolate shake and John had a pail o' fries.We also saw public radio in action with Mark Wheat blastin' some tunes.
To get back to our entrance, we took the Sky Ride across the park. It's a great way to see the sites and also Depeche Mode who happened to be playing at the Grandstand. To complete our fair adventure, I had a last snack of deep fried Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and John slurped down an over-sized root beer.
Our fair experience was complete!
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| Cute stitchery at the Creative Activities Bldg |
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| Bicycle exhibit |
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| Some recycling |
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| John, Speaker in the Hizzouse |
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| Oh My! |
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| Recycle your cans! |
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| Beautiful '40s building |
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| Cool display about plants' roots |
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| Art made from seeds. Yep |
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| We blitzed the Republican booth |
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| Deep fried Reese's. So good |
Looks like its way more fun than ours. That quilted seem ripper is pretty cool! And you're killing me with the deep fried Reese's! Boo on the hot and humid though. That I can live without!
ReplyDeleteI'm probably not going to ours this year. To much hoopla I guess. We did go to the El Paso County fair in Calhan. No recycling cans!