If you're not from Minnesota you, as I did when I moved here, might be scratching your head in confusion. "The state fair?" You might be asking yourself, "People go to those? Isn't it just a bunch of cows?" I mean, yes, it is a bunch of cows. BUT THERE'S MORE. Minnesota takes its fair VERY seriously - the fairgrounds are on a permanent stake of land, not a field like all the county fairs I'd been to in Michigan. There are PERMANENT buildings. There are REAL STREETS, you can see them on
google maps and everything! Maybe other states do this as well, but in Michigan they don't even have a state fair anymore, so I can't exactly speak on the matter.
But really folks, the most important part of the fair is getting the weirdest food you can, drinking beer, walking around, people watching and maybe playing some arcade games. This year we went late on the very last day, so all the animals were already gone... but it was nice and cool, and the crowds were down. You could even hear the vocal stylings of Toby Keith wafting from the Grandstand.
waiting in line outside the grandstand for our fried olives / first beer of the day
In case you were curious, here is a list of everything I tasted on that day. If you're into healthy food you might want to skip this portion, otherwise you may experience heart palpitations.
-cheese curds
-beer (3)
-
comet corn (illustrated above, these were like.. liquid nitrogen soaked, cap'n crunch flavored nuggets)
-fried olives stuffed with cream cheese (worth the amazingly long wait)
-a piece of fried banana
-corn dog
-cronut dosant
clockwise: the last fried olive / alex goes for the gold / giant jenga sits alone / alli and her dosant haul
We also went down the
giant slide, which was more fun than one might think.
inside the agriculture & horticulture building / kidway at dusk
