Fun at the Fair!

I have been to the fair a record, for me, 3 times this year. On Monday my office had the opportunity for a behind the scenes tour with our board member, Chris Leach, who is the Operations Manager there. We went behind the Grandstand area where the performers trailers are and toured the building used for meals, hiked down into the electrical shop, over to the onsite police station, into public relations and on to ticketing – accurate attendance counts are very, very important. At the horticultural area we toured the greenhouses that grow all of the fabulous greenery and flowers you see all over the grounds.  We also stopped in at Bailey House, donated by Bailey Nurseries in Woodbury, which is the headquarters for the Minnesota State Fair Foundation. After the tour we stayed for the parade and had a chance to see the Budweiser Clysdale’s. We read information that informed us it takes 45 minutes to harness the horses to the wagon and the driver is handling 75 pounds worth of pull on the reins at any given minute!

I went back that night for the Roseville Rotary meeting after picking up my husband Bill. Our meeting is typically held every Monday over the noon hour at the Radisson Roseville but come state fair time we always relocate to the Blue Ribbon tent for an evening dinner. Our host was Rotarian Jim Sinclair, Deputy General Manager of MSF. We had a great meal, heard from a speaker who talked to us about the livestock competitions, judging and how sophisticated computerization now details every single aspect of an animal. Livestock brought into the fairgrounds are viewed, bought and even sold on a worldwide basis though technology.

Bill and I were the lucky recipients of Grandstand Show tickets for the ‘2013 Happy Together Tour’ – which was awesome. Most of the groups were popular in the 60’s, before my time, so I had NO clue when Gary Lewis of ‘Gary Lewis & the Playboys’ told a story about a song he started writing for his dad for a birthday present. When he finished it he decided he was going to record, ‘Everybody Loves a Clown’, with his band and it went on to become a number one hit for the group. He said he bought his dad a card instead. I come to find out later his father is Jerry Lewis and had I known that I would have looked at him in a much different light. I also think I figured out that the ‘kicks’ in the song Kicks by Paul Revere and the Raiders was not about soccer which led me to think that getting your ‘kicks’ on Route 66 was all about having fun driving. Correct me if I am wrong :)

Wednesday was ‘sister’ day at the fair. I have not gone with my older sister Cathy and younger sister Lori for years and they decide it was time I did. We all parked in the free lots and took the bus in. If you have not tried the FREE service I highly urge you to do so. We parked off Lexington and as we got out of our cars the bus was pulling up, it took us maybe 15 minutes to get to the fair and when we left the bus was there waiting. Super slick.

Over 6.5 hours we covered all of the exhibits at the fair and of course all of the animal barns with a must stop at the giant boar pen who, as usual, was lying down.

I had money burning a hole in my pocket and I really wanted to buy some miracle gadget either in the hippodrome or the merchandise building. I was thisclose to buying the miracle slicer in the merchandise mart. It sells for $29.95 and shreds cabbage for coleslaw like nobody’s business, AND, special that day only, you also got the peeler that makes tomato peel roses, a serrated cutting tool, (shipped accidently to the fair and limited amounts available), that makes tomato boats you could fill with chicken or tuna salad and a tool that hollows out fruit and vegetable cores. All this for the special state fair price of $25 – tax inclusive. I was pulling out my money when I noticed Cathy, Lori and my friend Cindy laughing as they walked away. That gave me pause. I have never made cole slaw in my life and I don’t like it, I would probably not do tomato roses as my husband hates tomatoes and I usually find quartering fruits first then using a knife cuts cores out perfectly well. Dang, I talked myself out of it. I did, however, buy the deep penetrating sore muscle cream from the Royal Jelly Bee stand for Bill, though curiously enough, it had no royal jelly in it and a golf ball that is impossible to putt in a straight. While most people would notice the ball, I am thinking some of the people I golf with in social tournaments might not necessarily be paying that much attention by the 15 or 16th hole so it will be a great trick to play.

Lastly, I tried a new food this year, Nitro Ice Cream, which tastes like a thicker, richer Dairy Queen. The peanut butter burger with cheese and bacon at O’Gara’s was an exciting new taste treat, unless, like Lori and Cindy you got the quarters with monster blobs of peanut butter, then maybe it was not so tasty.

I am also replacing my cheese curds. I usually go to the stands that are outside and this year Cathy bought cheese curds from the Mouse Trap inside the food building. I was telling her they were not the ‘real’ cheese curds until I bit into one – not nearly as greasy and no taste lost due to that fact. No matter where you buy it, it’s impossible to get a bad beer, but the mini donut beer was ruled out as the line snaked all the way around the block.

All in all I have had a great time fair going! I’ll be back next year and the year after that and after that…