2024 Fair Visit #1!

2024 Fair Day 1 is in the books!

How did it go, you ask? Well, it didn’t start out great. The first two hours looked like this:

I have a system for days when I need to be at the Fair early. Out of the house by 7:30am, in line for the parking lot by 8am, and you breeze right in. Well, not today. Not even close.

I was in line to park in the north lot at 8am, where I was planning to meet friends. The line was longer than I would have expected, but I wrote that off to the nice weather and the hot forecast for the weekend - maybe people were moving up their plans. I figured, still plenty early to get a spot without too much trouble. But then I sat. And sat. And sat. And sat. By an hour later at 9am, I had gone 0.5 miles with 0.8 miles to go. I have never seen any parking situation at 8am remotely this bad, especially not on day one of the Fair, which is historically the lowest attendance day. At one point, I sat through 5 consecutive light cycles without a single car moving through the intersection!

Bailing out of line as soon as I could, I tried for a plan B, the Park N Ride at the U. I zipped over there, and there was parking aplenty! But there were also at least 250 people in line at each of the three shuttle stops there. Again, I have never seen it that bad there. What’s going on?? It takes a lot to dampen this guy’s Fair spirit, but at this point I was ready to give up.

I had one final ace up my sleeve. I have a coworker that lives about a half mile from the Fair and she rents out her yard for parking. I figured she’d be full by now, but I checked in with her anyhow and, miracle of miracles, she still had space!! And, true Fair angel that she is, she offered a free friends and family discount! 15 minutes later, now 10am on the dot, I was FINALLY parked and walking towards the Fair.

Meeting my friends, we began to make up for lost time. I started my day at the Farmer’s Union - at this point, I needed a sure bet to lift my mood, and as I’ve said before, Farmer’s Union never disappoints! And sure enough, their Turkey Kristo and Maple Cream Nitro Cold Press delivered!

The Kristo was buttery, crispy, oozey, bacony goodness. The Texas toast was the perfect vehicle for this, and the apple butter mixed with the cheddar cheese was comfort food defined. They didn’t skimp on the turkey either! The Maple Cream Nitro Cold Press gave me the extra caffiene I needed after having not had any all morning.

Feeling better but still unsettled, we wandered over towards the West End, where we were due to meet up with Katie. On the way, we passed the Visitor’s Center, and this is where my fortunes turned completely. For it was just the right time to catch the Fairborne and Fairchild photo op!!

Getting a photo op with Fairborne is joy enough, but something magical happened right after this picture was taken. As Fairborne turned to greet the next guest, his tail bumped my arm that was behind him, which was holding my half-eaten Kristo and coffee. The bump caused the coffee to spill into the tray, wetting the sandwich - notice the remnant of maple cream on top here.

Now you are probably thinking, wow, just when his day was looking up, another frustrating thing happens. But the Fair works in mysterious ways my friends. You know what’s better than a Turkey Kristo? A maple cream coffee flavored Turkey Kristo!! That’s right folks - Fairborne and I teamed up to make the next Fair new food sensation! #lifegoals

We finished our journey to the West End and met up with Katie.

Katie had procured the Blue Barn’s Breakfast Gnocchi.

This involves scrambled eggs with a pesto sauce combined with bacon and gnocchi, with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I wanted this to be better, but I think it had been sitting out for a bit. The gnocchi were texturally all wrong - slightly tough and bouncy. I’ve got gnocchi opinions, so this wasn’t working for me.

From there we went to the Schell Stage to catch the MN History on a Stick presentation. Hard to describe, it’s sort of an irreverant and farcical take on some of Minnesota’s less well known history. They’ve done it for years but they refresh the show each year with different content. I hadn’t gone for many years, so it was nice to catch it. I had forgotten how funny it was!

There was a whole song and skit about Paul Bunyan’s girlfriend Lucette Diana Kensack, whom is depicted in a 17’ tall statue in Hackensack, MN. In the skit, the statue comes to life and is lamenting about how Paul gets all the limelight and no one even knows she exists. The writing was very clever, the performer was great at doing over-the-top Minnesotan, and it was the highlight of the show.

There was also a funny skit where they personified each of Minnesota’s Official State So-and-so (e.g. bird, flag, apple, etc…) Did you know that Minnesota has an official state dirt? If you said Lester Soil, you’re right! As you can imagine, a person playing dirt is a pretty funny character. We also have an official state drink - what do you think it might be?

Next we made a quick pass through the animal barns. Sheep haircuts - never gets old!

This rabbit caught my attention. It looks for all the world like it has permanent eyeliner!

From here we headed across the Fairgrounds towards the Ag and Creative Arts Buildings. Along the way, I spotted the most Fairiest of Fair things:

Nothing says Fair quite like an enormous dumpster labeled Grease Only. It’s hard to tell the scale of this thing, but this is no small dumpster - I’m holding that camera above my head! AND there was another identical Grease Only dumpster next to it! Let’s not even wonder how many times they have to empty these during the Fair.

Conveniently, our meandering route took us within range of the king of beers, and after my morning it was Beer O’Clock as far as I was concerned. No, not Budweiser - Mini Donut Beer!!

We also stopped by the DFL booth (for you out-of-staters, that’s Minnesota’s democratic party, Democrat-Farmer-Labor) to get our Harris / Walz pins. Even took a picture with our governor and potential future vice president.

Fairs are often hotbeds of political expression. In my very informal “straw poll” I saw a ton of people wearing Harris Walz gear at the Fair today and the word “Trump” zero times. Do what you will with that information.

Once in the Creative Arts Building, we started with the food competitions. The colors of these vinegars really caught my eye. That pink one on the top shelf is Chive Blossom vinegar!

Check out the woven hats and the detail of the fishing lures on these hat cookies!

It occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve ever highlighted the Bundt cake baking contest on the blog. This is a gross oversight, because the Bundt pan was invented not even five miles from our house at Nordicware! So, let me fix that:

I really love lemon cake, and my eye went right to this prize-winning lemon cake.

The detail on these cupcakes - that bird feeder and nest!

I saw this quilt from across the room. The photo doesn’t do it justice - the colors were so vivid and the stichwork was very clever - look closely at the stitching and you’ll see the shell shapes.

While we were in Creative Arts, it started to rain. Steadily. For a long time. The forecast called for only maybe a passing shower, not the three hours of straight rain we ended up getting. This pushed everyone indoors and really made what was already a crowded opening day feel like a weekend at the Fair. Dealing with the rain would prove to be a nuisance for much of the rest of the afternoon. On the bright side, watching people walking around wearing glorified trash bags is always good for a laugh!

At one point we took shelter under the Culligan water station tent. And that’s where the Fair delivered us yet another of it’s “when life gives you lemons you make lemonade” lessons. The wall under the tent is covered with a display featuring the history of the Culligan company. This sounds incredibly boring, but we had nothing better to do so we started reading it after a while. And then we came across this gem:

In 1954, [Culligan received] its first celebrity endorsement from 1950s swimming movie star Esther Williams. She was positioned both as a celebrity swimmer and a home maker, with the phrase “I know water, and hard water is hard to get along with.”

I love that “swimming movie star” was an occupation you could list on your resume back in the day. The whole wall of Culligan company history (yet ANOTHER company started in Minnesota) was full of such chuckles. I bet the writer was like “no one’s gonna read a corporate history wall at the Fair, I’m gonna just have some fun with this”. Whomever you are, wherever you are, thank you for your contribution! It made for a fun way to pass the time as we waited for a break in the rain.

When that break came we headed over to the Ag Building. I took a picture of the winning set of corn. Notice how fresh it looks on day 1! I’ll try to remember to take another picture at the end of the Fair.

The tomatillos were especially impressive. The deal with these categories is not only do the veggies need to look like good specimens of their type, but each veggie in the set needs to be consistent with each other - size, color, and so on.

When near Peterson’s pork chop you buy a pork chop. It remains our favorite Fair food, and this was an excellent rendition!

Still dodging rain, we headed into the jam packed, shoulder-to-shoulderFood Building to get a few wishlist items. On a whim, I tried iPierogi’s Stuffed Cabbage Roll.

This is not an item I would ever think about eating, inside or outside the Fair. But I was intrigued after seeing it on the list of gluten free foods I was researching for our friends. And folks, it delivered the first Fair food surprise of 2024. This was really, I mean really, good. The meat seasoning was legit, not bland at all. The sauce was fantastic too. I loved it. This is why every once in a while you take out a flyer on a random Fair food item!

Also in the Food Building, and also gluten free, the pecan tart at Sara’s Tipsy Pies was a nice treat.

And now it was time for me to head out - I had an airport pickup to do for our out of state friends who are coming in for the Fair! Even though I knew I wasn’t returning, I got the hand stamp anyway. It’s a reminder of the fact that even when your day at the Fair throws several frustrating things your way, a day at the Fair is always a day well spent!

BUT WAIT! IT’S NOT OVER!

Katie stayed at the Fair a little longer, and she brought home one final treat for me - the Fluffy’s Donuts Strawberry Lemonade donut.

This was pretty good. Very dense for a donut, but the fruity flavors work great here and there’s something about those little red sprinkles that was satisfyingly chewy and delicious. The little syringe had more of the flaboring in it. The idea was to sprinkle it around I think, but it was an unnecessary gimmick. And it is really sweet, not something I’d want regularly, but it was fun!

I’ll be back again tomorrow night with a Day 2 wrapup!