Fair Daze... The Yummy, the hot, and the ill-advised

Amanda called me last night and said that we should go see the fair. (For those of you not in Minnesota, the State Fair is such a big deal, the state department of education requires all schools including the University of Minnesota to wait until after the last day of the Fair to start class.)

It was hot today. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just saying.

I got up and headed over to Amanda's. On my way I stopped to get cash and somehow broke my shades. One more thing that'll be harder to replace since I can't go to Target. (I don't know how long the "no Target" rule is going to last. Right now, it's just an experiment.) Oooh, maybe Marshall's or Kohl's would be a good place to get shades. Ok.

Amanda remembered that her job is like two blocks from one of the main gates and she has a parking pass. So we got fantastic parking. Awesomely both of us also remembered to bring our water bottles.

First order of business: French Fries Breakfast - which just happened to be French Fries, Amanda's favorite fair food. Thank you too!

After French Fries, we headed over to the barns. The earlier the better for the barns. Today they were shearing sheep. This year it seemed there weren't very many chickens as there were in previous years. We did see rabbits and hares (yes, I can tell you the difference).

Don't know what's going on here:

But let's look at some birds. Look at the feet on that one.

Yes, that hen is taking a nap.

Gobble gobble gobble.

Amanda made this decision, which was interesting considering how typically well equipped the fair is.

Ill-advised moment number one:

Amanda wanted to see the big horses. Which are really big. I have a lot of respect for the fact their back feet face out into the aisles and my head is at a perfect kicking angle. They're really quite gentle. Which is insane. Because they're huge.

Cows were next. Mooo!

Followed by oinkers! Funny that I had my flying pig shirt on. (That comes up later today too.)

Spam: the Minnesota meat.

This lead us to the health fair building for our annual blood pressure/pulse war. Amanda has a lower blood pressure but my pulse rocks. While one of the lovely volunteers from the American Red Cross was taking my blood pressure, someone from another booth came over and made a general question "is anyone here a nurse? there's someone over there who needs help" at which point both Amanda and my lady sprang into action. Soon several police officers and paramedics arrived on the scene. About the time the medics pulled out the IVs I got up and walked over to the police officers so I didn't have to watch anything that would've made me pass out. This lead to one of the officers asking about the Flying Pig half marathon and some general flirting. Eventually, Amanda got done helping the person and we went on our way.

The fair is like another world sometimes. People grow things and make things and raise animals. It's the opposite of my life. (Oh shoot, I forgot to water my plant...) They also have tractors which are apparently collectible.

Another fair requirement of Amanda's is corn on the cob. It was my first year of corn, not so bad actually.

We did some more stuff; the Eco building (which lost most of it's luster now that my Kitchen is done), the international bazaar, and one of the parades. Next we hit the agriculture building, mmmm apples.

We headed over to the space tower which was closed "due to typical maintenance". For some reason, I thought the sky gondolas wouldn't bother me and we should do that instead.

No one knows why.

We had round trip tickets. We got off at the other end of the fair grounds and walked back.

Nice thing about the long walk back was we felt it earned us some funnel cakes.

Here we are, long hot fun day at the fair.

Now I'm laying at home feeling sunburned and needing to clean before Amanda and my pooky bear show up at 10am tomorrow morning.