Friday, September 12, 2014

The Great Minnesota Get Together 2014

The wrap up of summer is always a busy time as the fall kicks into full gear. It's been a little complicated for me by the fact that my apartment was broken into two weeks ago. No one was home, and other than my computer, cash and my boyfriends play station being taken no damage was done. Which in the scheam of things, is not the worst. Unfortunately nothing on my computer was backed up which means 10 years of documents, music and photos were lost. Somewhere someone is really confused why this lady had so many pictures of yarn. I had updated most of my projects on Ravelry but there are some chunks of projects I'm missing.

Luckily I had the State Fair to cheer me up! I talked about coming back home for the Minnesota State Fair when I was still living in Chicago and it's so nice to now be a hop and skip away. In fact this year I was able to fit in two visits.

First things first, I got our maps and daily deals all organized. The coupon booklet I had already picked up prior to the start of the fair. (I'm like a blue haired lady with my coupon books, I'm always consulting it and you better believe if I owned a fanny pack I would of carried it there.)

The first day we went early before I had to work, so we hit the animal barns before they started to smell with the later heat of the day. Here we're observing a calve competition. The judges comments were one of the most interesting parts of the day for me and I could have probably stayed there for hours if we didn't have other things to hit.

We made sure to stop by and visit the largest boar in the state.

We also got to see a milking demonstration and see Princess Kay of the Milky Way in person.

Each year all of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way contestants have their images carved in butter.

The food is really a highlight every year for me. Look at how happy I am to be eating this corn dog!

That's because it's not just ANY corn dog. It's the one and only, genuine Pronto Pup.

We also had a great fry bread taco

Some delicious grilled corn

and classic Sweet Martha's Cookies. I was just going to get a cone of cookies but boyfriend in his endless wisdom said "let's just get the bucket"

The one thing I didn't get to try was the Mini Donut beer by Lift Bridge Brewery. I was really sad that they were sold out because I only heard amazing things about it. Hopefully they'll have it next year.

One of the other really fun things about the State Fair is all of the other things they have on display. I forgot to stop by the seed art displays this year but we did look at the cured meats (boyfriend approves)

and the knitting in the arts and crafts building of course.

They still haven't updated their mannequins into this decade though.

We also took the Sky Ride. Which is where you get into a small pod and travel over the fair grounds.

The view is amazing, here you can see the giant slide in yellow and green.

We had a great time this year! Thanks for the oinks State Fair. I'm looking forward to next year already. 

Monday, September 1, 2014

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day! Here's a pile of piglets from the Minnesota State Fair.