The Great Minnesota Get Together!

It's State Fair season!!

It's a giant cow!! Watch out, it looks mean!

This is that special time of year when city kids encounter farm animals and farm kids encounter city animals. It's a wonderful mixture of quintessential Minnesota and the new forces of change. This year Andy and I went the first Saturday with free tickets from the Mall of America. Here's our story.

We started off at the AM1500 stage listening to the live broadcast of Saturday Morning Sports Talk. You might be wondering why I would listen to a sports program, but never fear, it makes sense. Read on. The second hour of the broadcast was the annual Baby Walk competition. This is where parents bring their small children to the two hosts, tell the hosts the child's name and the hosts determine if the name is "approved" or "not approved." For example, an approved name was "Margaret May." A not approved name would be something like "Jaymie Starshine." There is nothing better than starting your day off hearing defenseless little children being ridiculed. Many parents lined up for the Baby Walk and to determine if their child was going to be made fun of for the rest of it's life or not.

Parents and their children lining up to see if they're terrible parents or not at the Baby Walk

After enjoying the Baby Walk, Andy and I moseyed around in search of food. I found Hot Dish on a Stick and Andy got a burrito. We also got cheese curds, mini doughnuts, and milkshakes from the dairy barn to top it off.

Me eating Hot Dish on a Stick, it was de-lish.

After chowing down on delicious food we visited the animals. I never knew they had bunnies at the State Fair, but I got to pet many soft bunnies. We also communed with the chickens and turkeys. Turkeys are smarter than chickens and were a lot more fun to see. One tried to eat my camera and another tried to eat Andy's hat.

If Buffy were a rabbit, she would look like this.

These are funny looking chickens.

Andy talking to the turkey.

After the poultry we checked out my favorite animals, sheep! They were starting to show some lambs as we were petting the animals. It looked pretty difficult to keep the lambs under control. The handlers didn't have leashes for the lambs and just had to hold their heads. Andy and I didn't visit the Miracle of Birth barn, but in the sheep barn we did see the "miracle of conception." There were some pretty frisky sheeps running in circles.Me and a fuzzy new friend.

These were the frisky sheep. I got nervous knowing what I was about to see, but it was over quick.

After seeing all the adorable animals and watching the cows in the Colosseum we wandered our way toward the exit. On our way we stopped by the DFL booth to see what we could see. It turned out that Al Franken was about to be on his way to speak to the fair crowd. So we waited a bit and then got to see Mr. Franken. I think he would do a good job in the US Senate and represent Minnesota well. We can all appreciate a little humor!

Al Franken at the DFL booth at the state fair.

That concluded our 2008 state fair visit. We didn't see everything, but then again, you can't see everything at the fair. I did something new, petted some sheep, and learned a little more about turkies! I also felt like poo for all the greasy, fattening food I ate, and it was time to go.