Day at the Fair

This is my brother Jimmy, the traitor in the Twins shirt, with my beautiful Haven.  We were getting ready to spend the day at the Minnesota State Fair.

The Minnesota state fair is the largest State Fair in the USA.  It over 1.6 million attenders per year.

We drove and parked and then rode a bus the rest of the way to the fair.  Much easier than trying to find parking there, and it was free.  Here is Haven on her first bus ride.  No car seat, so Jonathan would have had to sacrifice his life.

Mom and dad came up for the labor day weekend, so they went with us.  They decided today to stay one more day.

The bus had VERY slippery seats.  We all would have went flying if the bus tipped.  Hopefully it would have tipped toward my brother, so he wouldn't have landed on me!

Here are just a few of the people that were there.  People as far as the eye could see.  209,399 for the day to be exact.

Haven is loving her Aunt Amie.

We went to the lumber jack show.  Here they are having a saw logging contest.

Pole climbing contest.

Log rolling contest.  We also saw canoe jousting, log racing, and ax throwing contest.  It was fun and pretty corny at times.

There were pretty much just a few things we did at the fair and looking at and selecting food was THE MAIN item of the day.  There were booths everywhere.  It is hard to see just how big that super long corn dog was, but it was HUGE.  The one on the right is a foot long, so imagine how large the other one is!  Jonathan was going to get the huge one but they were out, so he got the foot long.  It was big enough.

There were quite a few interesting selections.  Buffalo on a stick was below.  They had alligator, ostrich.  They had other yummy selections it was really hard to know what we wanted to try.

Haven got to eat things she normally wouldn't.  Like these little mini-doughnuts.  They were super yummy.  They dipped them in sugar and Haven sure loved them.  She also got to eat a corn dog, fresh made french fries and deep friend cheese curds (those were wonderful!).  I was torn between getting the yummy fresh fries or what they called Australian batter potatoes.  There was a security guard that came by that had some of the fries, so I asked him if they were any good.  I didn't ask him for one, but he offered so I took it.  I was teased about begging food off of strangers.  Anyway, Haven was the one that kept asking for more from him.  He was great about it.  Boy did he have a northern accent!

We all wanted different things, so Mom ended up getting a roasted corn on the cob and a fresh made pretzel.  Amie got a classic corn dog, which she said she gets every year.  Dad tried two different brauts (the first one wasn't big enough for him).  He also had a pork chop sandwich that was soggy and tasteless.  Jonathan got a foot long corn dog, some chili cheese curly fries.  Jimmy has a chili cheese hot dog(nothing spectacular according to him) and those yummy fresh fries (he was nice and shared).  I had the Hot Dish on a stick (explained below if you click on the picture it should enlarge it).  It was GREAT!  I wanted to try different things, so I also picked the Australian battered potatoes, which were slices of potatoes battered and deep fried.  They came with your choice of ranch and cheese or both.  I chose....ketchup! They were yummy, but boy was I full because we all shared the donuts and cheese curds. 

We also saw some of the fair animals.  We saw horses, pigs with their piglets, and sheep.  Oh a cow briefly that Haven mooed at.

Here is the largest boar in MN.  It weighed 1,240 lbs.  This picture does not even begin to show how huge this thing was!!  I thought it was a sad looking boar.  I have no idea how it even moved.

Here we are on our way home.  We were all sore, tired and stuffed, but it was a good time had by all!