The Minnesota State Fair 2019

The Minnesota State Fair 2019

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 2, 2019

On Thursday night, we had dinner with our friends, Sue & Ron Korkowski!  Sweet Corn & Steak coupled with a moonlight swim makes for a pretty fun night!

On Sunday, we headed to the Great Minnesota Get Together.  Every year I think the crowds won't be so bad and every year they're worse.  Maybe we need to start going on a week day.

We were joined this year by Luke who thinks the fair is well worth a reason to come home from college to attend.  We also had Miss Sheri's college roommate Robin in from Hawaii along with her niece, Amanda.  It was their first time at the Minnesota State Fair so we were excited to show them all our favorite spots.

We had to endure some rain in the morning which sent the crowds inside.  Nothing like fair buildings packed with wet visitors to give the newbies the full fair experience right out of the gate!

We stopped at the coliseum to watch the young ladies compete in their barrel racing events.  I always like cheering for strangers  and booing for the ones who just don't seem like good people.  Lucky I haven't seen any of them who appeared to be bad people yet.

We ran into the DNR building after the rain started again and nearly bumped into this wise old owl who was perched on some guy's arm as we squished into the room.  Glad he didn't think any of us were field mice else it could have become an ugly situation.

I was squeezing through the crowd with my camera in my hand when I bumped into Smoky the Bear.  His handler saw the camera and assumed I wanted a picture with him when actually I was just trying to pass them.  But I had to be polite and request a picture which in hindsight was one of the highlights of my day.  This guy told me once that only I could prevent forest fires which kind of scared me because I don't even live that close to any forests.  So if I was the only one who could prevent them, I may need to move closer to a forest which I never did.  I guess I haven't heard of a lot of forest fires lately, so maybe he was wrong and there was someone else who could prevent them as well.  Needless to say, I didn't bring it up to him while we stood there together.  I'm just hoping he doesn't blame me for shirking my forest fire prevention responsibilities from way back when.

After the rain stopped, we went outside.  The DNR fishpond is one of my favorite spots at the fair.  They have fish from all over Minnesota deposited in the water here.  Not sure what they do with them after the fair, but I'm guessing there's some lemon and butter involved!

    

We went into the horticulture building to see all the pretty flowers and gardens on display.

Being in Minnesota, it's hard to walk too far without seeing something inspired by Prince.  At least I think this was supposed to be that weird prince symbol.  I never really understood what that thing was anyways.

The first time we went into the flower exhibit we were prevented access because they were being judged.  I was always told that man shouldn't judge and we should leave that up to a higher power, but I didn't feel like lecturing any of these people about how they should be spending their time.

I later judged these flowers as being very pretty, but then later felt guilty about passing judgment on them.  I really shouldn't be doing that.

Follow the yellow brick road!  Is it just me or did they make Dorothy's skirt just a little too short?   It's kind of uncomfortable to look at.

As you walk through the fair, you see different bands playing all over the place.  We stopped and watched Matt's Family Jam play a couple songs.  I wasn't sure which one of them was Matt, but he sure does seem to have a nice family.

We went into the Arts & Crafts building and again were welcomed by Prince.  I thought that would be a nice quilt to have especially to cover me should it ever start Purple Raining.

I used to love the Muppet Show so I felt a special attachment to seeing Animal and his band mates turned into Yarn Dolls.

I loved this painting of First Avenue highlighting all the Stars on Stars that adorn the building in Downtown Minneapolis.

Not sure where this guy is skating to, but he seems excited to get there.

I even bumped into a Barragy while I was there!  I hadn't seen Mick in quite a few years, but it was super fun getting to spend a few moments together at the Pet Pavilion.  Not every day I get the opportunity to do that.

Our tradition is to buy a bucket of Martha's cookies before we leave the fair.  It's by far the most lucrative food sold at the fair each year generating more than $4 million worth of revenue in 10 days!!  I'm in the wrong line of work...

We covered about 5 miles of walking through the day and the gang felt like we had seen everything we wanted to see, so we decided to head home.  All in all another great trip to the Fair!