Minnesota State Fair

This weekend I got to go to the Minnesota State Fair!  I've been hearing how great this state fair is, and the radio has been doing stories about the fair ever since I moved here. The fair is held in St. Paul, so I went down early Saturday morning.  My friend Ellory and her husband Ben were my hosts for the day, and me and Ben's sister Michaela, who also lives in St. Cloud, spent the day with them and then stayed at their place over night.

We made it to the fair by about 9:30, by taking a free shuttle from near Ben and Ellory's house. The fair is amazing! There is so much food, and that is what most people talk about when they told me about the fair.  So we started with food!

We split a bucket of cheese curds first off. Yep, a bucket of cheese curds. Fried. They were delicious, though I pretty quickly felt like I had had too much grease. Ah, the fair.

Nothing like fried cheese curds in the morning!

Prize winning honey on display, as well as frames of honey for people to see.

Beekeeping demonstration by U of M beekeepers

Next we visited the Agriculture building and watched a beekeeping demonstration, saw all the ribbons for honey and honey-related projects. We saw a bonsai competition, learned about apples, including the amazing number of apples invented by the University of Minnesota. On to the baby animal building, we pet baby pigs that were four days old, and saw baby lambs, rabbits, and cows.

We raced each other on the giant slide, got some more junk food, and went shopping for Fair t-shirts. We also went to the International Bazaar and watched a Hmong community group perform dances. Then we took the shuttle back to Ben & Ellory's house, where we took naps and rested for a few hours.

Hmong dancers

In the afternoon, we went back to the Fair. We met up with Kate & Carolyn, friends of both Ellory's and mine, and spent time looking at the craft building (quilts, pies, knitting) and fine arts building (painting, sculpture).

1st place honey-themed quilt

Kate works for Minnesota public TV, so we went and sat in rocking chairs at her stage, and listen to some excellent local artists play marimba music. Got some more fried food, then Ellory, Ben, Michaela, and I went to an Avett Brothers concert in the fair grandstands.  It was a great concert, and right afterwards, they had fireworks! We caught a shuttle home, and we all went to bed.

So great to be with Ellory, Carolyn, and Kate at the fair!!

I had a great time at the fair, though it was very hot and muggy.  There were sooooo many things I didn't get to see, I can't wait to go back next year!