State Fair!

The Minnesota State Fair is on! SD and I went yesterday, our last chance before it closes on Labor Day. Music is a big attraction and in adddition to the paid Grandstand acts, there are many stages that are free. Greg Brown was performing last night at the Leinie Lodge, hosted by Leinenkugel beer. It was a great concert in a nice outdoor venue. Those in the know arrived early to scope out a good seat. We got there 45 minutes before the start, but aleady the best seats were taken. Still, I had a good view of Greg and the band.

It was a bittersweet visit, since it may be my last Minnesota State Fair. Everyone has their favorites; I always like the Fine Arts building and also the horse barns. My favorite are the Percherons, large, gentle draft horses. There are horse shows, but I never plan far enough ahead to see them, although once I watched a horse saddling competition.

The State Fair is not the place to be sugar-free, and this was my first year attending sans sucre. It's a challenge to eat healthy at all and the first thing I wanted, indeed craved, was french fries. I knew exactly which booth I wanted, much to SDs chagrin. I did get my fries, and they were good! Dinner was smoked salmon on a stick. It was farmed Atlantic salmon, which I normally avoid, but it was the least offensive.


We went through the Miracle of Birth center and looked at some of the newborns, but the building was oppressively hot and smelly so we didn't stay long. We wandered through the Grandstand building, full of tacky stuff you wouldn't want to buy. We purchased a ladder from there once (you know the one) and were looking for the juice machine vendor. We never found him, which saved us a few hunder dollars. :-) Last year I bought the super-absorbent towels--three different sizes!--and this year we made out with a trunk organizer, complete with cooler and a shopping bag. Such a deal. :-)

SD wanted to look at tractors (!) cuz he thinks we might need one when we move to the country. You know, for landscaping and stuff. Yeah, right. We'll hire someone who knows what he's doing. He was also lusting after a riding mower (lord, help me) to manage the weeds. You know who'll end up riding the weeds, don't you? It will be a "her" not a "him".



But the highlight of the evening was Greg Brown. I describe him as Urban Folk, but this time he had a band and it was kind of rhythmic and bluesy. The severe thunderstorms that were threatening almost kept us from going to the fair; it's not the place you want to be in a tornado! But the storms stayed away until the middle of the night (3 a.m., but that's another story) and it was a very pleasant evening, warm but not hot.

The concert ended at 10 p.m., and as we left the Leinie Lodge, we spotted some frozen sorbet. This was difficult for me, because it was fresh fruit scooped out and then the sorbet was put back into the shell. I was really tempted by the coconut sorbet, served in a coconut shell, but managed to stay away. SD had a mango sorbet. I could have had some deep-fried cheese curds, but I thought the french-fries were enough fried food for one day. It paid off this morning--I stepped on the scale and weighed 121 pounds! Nothing I can eat can equal the taste of wearing a size 6. :-)