The Great Minnesota Get-Together

Since our route to and from the shore of Lake Superior followed I-35 through the Twin Cities we thought we should at least stop and see something.  There is so much to do in this area that I would almost do a separate vacation but making the decision to a single attraction was easy.  We were going to be in town the same week of the Minnesota State Fair-- it was vacation destiny.  My family has gone to the Kansas State Fair every year and recently my parents have started visiting other state fairs in the far off locales of Nebraska and Iowa.  Minnesota is touted as the best state fair in the country so we had to stop and check it out for ourselves.

The nickname for the state fair in Minnesota is "The Great Minnesota Get-Together".  When Minnesotans get-together they take it seriously.  This year they smashed the attendance record with 1.9 million fair-goers.  In one day alone 260,000 people headed to the fair to eat fried food on a stick.  Since we had spent days of solitude in the least visited national park we thought it would provide good contrast to our vacation to attended the biggest, most crowded event in the state too.  The state fair was also a good opportunity to see what makes the state of Minnesota and its people unique.
We were eager fair-goers and navigated some construction to find a park and ride lot.  Even at 8am this sizable high school parking lot was filling up quickly with people who could park and then catch a shuttle bus for a 15 minute ride to the fair.  It was sure nice not to fight the traffic ourselves, especially in an unfamiliar area.

Upon entering the fairgrounds we grabbed a schedule and a map for the day since we didn't want to miss a thing.  Our first stop was the sheepdog herding trials.  Arthur of course has a love for border collies and a sheepdog trial is border collies doing what they love to do most.  These dogs are so intensely focused on moving these sheep through the course.  And it became very obvious that sheep are dumb.  There must be a certain amount of strategy for the handlers as they are trying to predict how a dumb moving object (the sheep) is going to react to a precision instrument (a well trained dog).  The dogs did have to work a little harder than what is portrayed on the movie Babe where all the sheep gladly follows Babe's instructions since he has the sheep "password".   However I am convinced that I need a border collie for Vacation Bible School to keep all the kids in one bunch and nip at their heels until they move to the next location in an orderly manner.

After watching sheep dogs we worked our way across the fair to watch a few shows.  The first was dogs trained to do tricks such as jump into the water chasing a toy, catch Frisbees,  etc.  This was entertaining and fun but after watching border collies herding sheep and reacting to directions for numerous situations a dog shaking paws like it has done over and over in one certain way was a little bit underwhelming in my opinion.  The next show was a lumberjack exhibition.  They had two teams of lumberjacks and lumberjills demonstrate the various events in a lumberjack competition-- pole climbing, logrolling, boom running, ax tossing, and crossbuck sawing.  They also included some historical information about why each event was developed from a real life aspect of the lumberjack's job.  Each year the Lumberjack World Championship are held in Hayward, WI-- a town that we had driven through on our tour of the North Woods of Wisconsin the previous evening.

Our next few stops were the exhibit buildings.  The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (the department that does an excellent job with the state parks) has a large exhibit area that is fairly popular.  There is a fish pond in this area with a variety of native fish.  It was impressive the size of crowd that gathers to watch fish swimming.  I didn't feel like I understood fish enough to appreciate the apparent wonder that the fish were bringing about in our fair attendees.  We stood next to a group of a few Cub Scouts that were maybe first or second grade as they chatted excitedly about fish.  Two middle aged men were on the other side discussing in detail certain qualities of the fish.  Even a "soccer mom" with two preschoolers in a stroller was teaching her kids the differences between walleye and trout with the same importance she would impart other bits of knowledge such as the alphabet.  Minnesotans take their fish seriously.  Other exhibits included inner city kids learning to build canoes, displays about the dangers of non-native intrusive species, interactive presentations about mining resources in northern Minnesota.  There was also a large gallery of taxidermy Minnesota animals, which is the closest we got to seeing a moose.  Another building we really enjoyed was one focusing on sustainability and eco-friendly living.  We learned about water quality, wind energy, car-sharing or biking as primary transportation, and agriculture products that have a lower impact on the environment.

The other exhibit buildings were similar to the Kansas State Fair-- fine arts, 4-H, agriculture, and domestic arts.  I was impressed with the ag building.  It had educational exhibits mixed with the competition exhibits.  Minnesota also has competition classes for largest sugar beets (the are the 2nd largest producer of sugar beets in the country) and for Christmas trees (which is one of the only agricultural areas I have a certain level of expertise).  The birthing barn was also particularly popular.  They also had very nice livestock barns.

By about 4pm I was suffering from sensory overload-- too many sights, sounds, and people.  I was probably more exhausted from a day at the fair than from even our long backpacking days.   We decided to make the journey back to the car and attempt to beat rush hour traffic on our way out of town.  We didn't succeed but it was pleasant enough sitting on the interstate discussing our thoughts from the fair and listening to our audiobook.  We had about a 2 hour drive south to our hotel for the night in Clear Lake, Iowa.  Clear Lake was the only place I didn't print a map for since I thought there would only be a handful hotels right off the highway-- easy peasy.  This was not the case but we did get to see more of the town of Clear Lake than we had intended which wasn't a bad thing.  We ate dinner at a pizza place/sports bar.  The pizza hit the spot and we caught up on the quota of sports we had missed over the past week with the 30 some TV screens around the restaurant.  It was also interesting how just the act of staying in a basic hotel seems very luxurious and is a really treat after a few days of camping.  It makes one appreciate clean sheets, a warm shower, and Full House reruns on TV.

We had a great time at the Minnesota State Fair and were sure glad that they shared their get-together with "a few interlopers from beyond the borders of the Land of 10,000 Lakes" (quote from Star Tribune).  Omnia Vincit Amor.