How To Have Fun At The Fair: Part One

The opening of the Minnesota State Fair is a big darn deal for my sister Kitty & I-we go opening day every year. Kitty has even started entering a cake into the fair baking competition every year, but we'll get to that later.

Each year we have a certain routine we generally follow; places we go and in what order. So I'd like to offer you Kitty & my version of visiting the Minnesota State Fair-a guide if you will. For those who have been before-it might open your eyes to things perhaps you've never seen. For those of you who have not gone & plan to-this should help you get the most out of your experience. To all others-just live vicariously through us and enjoy the mental journey.

This year, for the first year, I took some digital pictures to help illustrate the journey. Unfortunately I missed some shots and will fill in more pictures over the next few days.

OK, the best thing to do is go early in the morning as you'll have a little more breathing room and stuff will be clean and fresh. Plus there are many great breakfast options:

• There are numerous church dining halls serving good old fashioned full breakfasts for a reasonable price. Don't over-eat right away though!
  
• There are also many sit down fast food options, the best being The Blue Moon Dine In Theater(more on them later.)
• But nothing quite beats a great cup of coffee on a cool fair morning, along with a bag of mini donuts. There are two classic donut vendors; Tiny Tim Miniature Donuts and our personal favorite Tom Thumb Donuts. As for coffee, again many choices-our favorite is The Minnesota Farmers Union Coffee Shop. They have a full range of coffee house coffees. use fair trade products and the staff is always stellar. Plus their prices are as good as any coffee shop outside the fairgrounds.

Once you have some fuel in you-it's time to get your day goin'. First stop, The Administration Building. Just walk in and right inside the door you'll find a receptionist's desk which will have a galvanized bucket filled with this years State Fair pin-grab one(they're totally FREE!), pin it on and away we go!

Our next stop is the Agriculture And Horticulture Building where we visit the Crop Art Show. This is a classic exhibition of artwork created by the use of seeds grown in Minnesota. For many years Lillian Colton was the matriarch of the show-she was the quintessential artisan of crop art and her many works lined the walls as she gave live demonstrations of the process. This past March Lillian passed away, ninety something years old, and the fair has assembled a wonderful photo tribute showing her in her home which was basically one large crop art studio. A sampling of her original works also still hangs on the wall. But you can certainly miss her presence at the demonstration table. Her legacy lives on each year with a new batch of amateur crop artists(young & old), who immortalize a wide variety of subjects in the craft she perfected.

Another area of this same building is the bee & honey section-here you'll find the Honey Candy stand, home to the honey stick. The honey stick is a plastic "pixie stick" like tube that contains a delicious serving of pure honey, available in a variety of flavors. For $1 you can get 5 tubes of your choosing, from sour cherry, cinnamon, watermelon...to root beer-these are tasty little pick-me ups you can have during the day ahead. The honey section of the bulding also sells every variety of locally produced honey available(you can get taste samples!) and makes a homemade honey ice cream and lemonade that is outta this world!

Feel free to tour the other sections of the Agriculture and Horticulture building; flower arranging, apple competitions, scarecrows, Christmas trees, Minnesota produced products, wine competition as well as vegetables and other agie-horticultural oriented things.

Now comes Kitty's most anticipated stop of the day, The Creative Activities Building. Home to all the "creative activities" you can think of, woodworking, knitting, sewing, crafts...and of course the baking activities. As mentioned before, Kitty started entering the "cakes with shortening" baking competition-more specifically the "white with egg whites" category. Each specific category gets any number of entry's by any number of people. They have a giant, multi-shelved, cooler that features a select number of the top cakes in each category; Usually the four ribbon winning cakes(1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th), plus one or 2 runner-ups. Now the very first year-Kitty didn't get a ribbon, but had her cake displayed in the case. The second year, she actually placed 4th-won a ribbon and got $5(yes five)! The third-last year...well, she was sad the rest of the day-she didn't even make the case. This year....well, can you say Kitty has the 2nd best white cake with shortening and egg whites" in the entire state of Minnesota?! The cakes are displayed with their ribbons, but no names(you must look at the posted winners list at the front of the building)-so at first she didn't think she had even made the case, but I swore the '2nd place winner is yours!' We ran and checked the list, "2nd place Kitty Danz"! Let's just say many pictures were taken and she floated the rest of the day. Oh yea, she got a dark red ribbon and $7(seven)! AND BRAGGING RIGHTS FOR A WHOLE YEAR!

Well kids, it's super late and I am very tired. So I'm sorry to say we will have to put the great State Fair journey on hold until tomorrow.
But check back 'cause there's lot's more fun to come!