Fran Fifth and final trip to the Fair today. We took Henry one more time and said a great, long goodbye to the 2016 State Fair! This won’t be the last post, though - I still have to do my “Best of” post. :-)
Arriving at the Fair nice and early. We’re pumped!
First, we sought out some breakfast. On the drive over, I realized I’d never had Spam - which seemed like a major hole in my Minnesota credentials. Problem solved - the Breakfast Spam Sandwich. Spam, egg and cheese. Turns out that grilled Spam is delicious! The crispy edges the Spam got from the grill made this sandwich. Would definitely eat again! And before you think I am crazy, Katie AND Henry both approved as well!
Fueled up, we headed for the Skyride. Here we are preparing to load up. Henry has never been on this before so we weren’t sure what to expect.
Turns out that pure joy is what we should have expected. :-)
Here we are, soaring over the Fair in a gondola.
At the other end of the Skyride is the Space Tower. No lines at this time of the morning, so up we went!
More pure joy!
High in the sky, looking west over the Fair, Minneapolis in the distance.
Looking northwest out past the Grandstand, University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus in the distance.
Looking north up the long stretch of Fairgrounds.
And now we’ve come full circle (I skipped posting the east and south shots, since that’s not over the Fair). That’s the Agriculture Building in the foreground, Coliseum beyond.
Back on earth, we hit the Produce Exchange for the rest of our breakfast. This peach was much better than the one I had earlier in the Fair (this was a Colorado peach). Watermelon was yummy too.
Henry ended up eating 80% of the watermelon. Not surprised. He eventually decided the fork wasn’t shoveling it in fast enough and bare-handed the rest of that tub.
To the horse show! The fast horses were threading between each pole up and back. Harder than it looks - the kid riders were so young, some were only 8 years old!
Having fun cheering them on.
Next stop - THE PORK CHOPS! We must have looked like we were really enjoying them because in the span of 3 minutes, four separate groups of strangers walked right up to us and asked us where to get them!
I got three bites before Henry stole mine and ate the rest of it. He handed an almost bare bone back to me so I could scavenge some scraps off of it. Love him!
We then visited the Agriculture Building. Last time I looked at the giant veggies, this time we looked at the miniature veggies. Katie loved these! The baby carrots in the middle tray are the best!
Into the Food Building for the best curds at the Fair.
Mmmmmmmm, one last batch of curds for the year. Salty, chewy, warm fried heaven in a paper tray.
Later in the morning the crowds started to grow. The weather for the entire Fair run has been perfect, which is rare, and they’ve already set 3 daily attendance records this year. I think they have a shot at the overall attendance record (which is 1.82 million over the 12-day fair).
We were actually with two friends from college (“the Jens”) most of the day, but we didn’t think to take a picture of them until now. :-) Jen on the left lives in Seattle but flew in to come to the Fair (well, in theory, also to spend time with Jenn on the right and her new baby, but we all know it was really about the Fair ;-) They were specializing in beer tasting - they highly recommend the Minnesota Mule from Ball Park Cafe - and smartly Uber’ed to the Fair!
We hit the Kidway and Katie and Henry squeezed into a bumper car for some fun.
Henry was loving it, while mom was just trying to breathe from being sausaged in there.
Monster truckin’ again.
Then we saw the trampoline show! Lots of tricks, flips and high bouncing!
Henry was focused on the cheering. He would say “Oooooooooooooh” after a big trick and clap vigorously.
He attacked his About-a-foot-long hot dog with the same vigor. He went straight down the middle and peeled that bun out of the way so he could get right to the good stuff.
Barely remembered to take the picture of one last Poncho Dog for the year.
And then… it happened. Every year, we walk past this and Katie says “I want to try that sometime.” This was the year.
Deep fried snickers bar. Yup. It was intense. There’s no way one person could (or, at least, should) finish that. Even between four of us, we couldn’t do it. Holy cow that was intense.
Had to lighten things up - back to the Corn Roast. Happy to report the corn has been getting sweeter as the Fair went on. Today’s was the best yet.
Henry zonked out after all the morning fun and food. He’s snoozing while I try a Lemon Kombucha on tap from the Produce Exchange. Refreshing change of pace.
We ended the trip listening to some acoustic music in the West End with some dessert, the hot waffle ice cream sundae from the West End Creamery. A great way to end the year’s fairgoing! Time to get back to routine, get back to exercising so we can lose the weight we’ve gained, and start planning for next year. Stay tuned for my annual Best Of wrap-up post!
