The Great Minnesota Get-Together

For two weeks every year Minnesota comes together to enjoy the Minnesota State Fair which happens to 1.5 miles from our apartment.  Since Rachel and Nick were in town we planned to go to the fair while they were here.  Everyone that you talk to up here raves about the fair.  Don't worry Texans, it's ranked as the 2nd best state fair in the country, after of course, Texas.  We have been told about the ridiculous amounts of fried food on sticks, and the Canadian rednecks that show up, and the hundreds of thousands of people that will be there.  As we were walking...yes we walked from the apartment because the parking is out of control...we got closer to the fair and we were noticing how crowded it already was.

 I tried to take pictures to capture how many people were there, but I don't think these will do justice.  It was sooo crowded that you had to constantly watch where you were going or you would run someone over.

 We downloaded the App on my iPhone that had an interactive map that would tell you where you were on the 360 acre property.  There was also a list of all the "restaurants" and what food they had available. We also had a paper map to decide where we wanted to go.  The walkways are streets with street names that were very helpful in maneuvering where you wanted to get to.  We decided to head towards "The Miracle of Life" center.  This barn houses lots and lots of pregnant animals and you can watch the baby animals being born throughout the fair.  We saw some chicks hatching...

 some baby lambs...that were a day old

a baby calf that was born 2 hours before we got there.  They were showing the video of the birth above the pen and this is my favorite picture...it's David and Nick watching the cow give birth....

and here's the baby calf....

and here are Rachel's favorite...the baby piglets.  These were about a day old, there were a lot of baby piglets. 

After we saw the babies we went across the way to look at some bunny rabbits.  There were hundreds of them!!!!!  This type of bunny kept freaking me out because it looked like they had eyeliner on....weird

The fair also had a huge slide that you ride a piece of carpet down it.  It was hilarious. We didn't do it, because it cost extra, but looked like fun.

There are many highlights of state fairs, and one of them of course, is the food.  We had a great selection of fried food.  I had to go with my staple fried foods....corn dog and funnel cake.  Rachel got CORN ice cream with Honey Butter Bacon topping.....yes, and it was delicious!

The corn ice cream was an ode to the Iowa farmers.  They also had a booth where you buy a bucket of chocolate chip cookies for 16 dollars and then go to the Milk booth that you pay $1 and you get all you can drink milk or chocolate milk.  We didn't do that, but it sounded delicious.  Of course they had your friend candy bars (Reese's, Milky Way, 3 Musketeer, Snickers, Oreos), tiny donuts, candy apples, turkey legs, fried salmon on a stick, Hot Dish (that's Midwest for casserole) on a stick, deep fried cookies, pizza on a stick, belgian waffles, crepes, sno cones, french fries, chocolate covered jalapeno peppers, and so many more. In fact you should look at this link to look at all the different food vendors that are there.  There's about 300 vendors...at least. Also once you're on that page you can look to the right where it says "2011 All Food List" and "2011 New Food List" to see what's new at the fair this year.  Looking at this list will blow your mind.

We also rode a couple of the rides which if you know me that's a big deal.  We started out with the swings to see how I handled it.  Then we also did a roller coaster that had a cart for 4 people. 

I actually enjoyed these rides which I guess inspired me to ride the roller coasters at the Mall of America when we took Rachel and Nick there on Sunday.  They were fun, and I might actually ride another one...maybe...