Like every good native Minnesotan, I made my annual pilgimage to the State Fair on Sunday with my sister Donna.  We use each other for cover for such juvenile indulgences when we can’t get reasonable adults to join us.  Donna and her husband Jim live a scant half-mile from the Fair’s main gate on Snelling Avenue, but we usually have Jim drive us to the gate and pick us up when we’re finally exhausted.  But he couldn’t make it this year, so we decided to take advantage of the shuttle busses.

Relying on Donna’s knowledge of the Falcon Heights area, we chose the Roseville Professional Center’s parking lot as our pick-up point.  We arrived about 9:30 AM and were on the bus within 5 minutes.  The trip to the drop-off point across Snelling from the main gate took about 15 minutes, so that part of things went amazingly well.  We returned about 3:30 PM, and there was a bit of a crowd waiting with us for the return bus.  Apparently they’d gotten a bit bogged down and it was a 20 minute wait for our bus – or rather two busses, which arrived nearly simultaneously and they were both sorely needed by that time.  Our bus was standing room only by the time we departed.  The return trip to our parking lot was a bit more circuitous than before, but it still took less than another 15 minutes for us to in our car.  On the whole, the shuttle bus was nearly as fast and convenient as getting a ride.  We’ll use it again if the need arises in the future.  If you’re driving to the Fair, I’d highly recommend it.  First of all, it’s free.  Second of all, it’s just about as fast as parking in one of the paid lots and walking in.  Finally, there’s no stress.

We didn’t see anything remarkably new at the Fair, but we really weren’t looking very hard.  We enjoyed our usual course, starting with the Fine Arts, the Creative Activities, and Education buildings and then winding our way through the crowds to the horses, sheep cattle and other critters.  What we did do for the first time this year was to take a trip on one of the trolley cars, with a vague intention of getting off on somewhere west of where we started.  And, lo and behold, the trip took us by parts of the Fair on Carnes and Judson that we hadn’t seen in decades.  We had such a good time just gawking at everything that we ended up right back where we started!

The biggest surprise for me was our lunch.  I love the amazing foods and treats at the Fair, but Donna and I are both of an age where we know we have to watch what we eat, (or at least make a good show of sensible selections) so we tend toward simplicity for the major meals and indulge ourselves in a couple of the far-from-healthy temptations as we walk the fairgrounds.  I don’t know what made us choose a foot-long hot dog for lunch, except that we wanted something immediately and the other choice was a restaurant that was a major disappointment last year.  And a hot dog at least had the virtue of not being deep-fried.  The surprise was that it was exceptionally good!  I don’t mean passable by exhibition stand fare standards.  I mean we both thought it was delicious.  The skin had a nice snap to it, it was smokey without being artificial, and except for the plain untoasted bun, I couldn’t have been happier about the choice.  Thinking about it now, I suspect that the fact that I had mine with just onions and yellow mustard helped quite a bit, because I tend to smother my hot dogs at home with relish.

We did manage to get to the Horse Barn, but we spent all of our time there on the outside watching the horseback riders preparing for their competition.  It was apparently the girls’ turn on Sunday.  I envied the biceps of the women I saw as they led their mounts around the hay-covered staging area.  No slackers here, that’s for sure.  These are ladies of substance and stature, with a clear sense of dedication.  The teens were just as intense in their preparation, just skinnier.  One particular young lady closed her eyes as she sat on her horse, and you could tell she was visualizing her routine.  And I’m always struck by how well-behaved the horses are at the Fair, given all of the people gawking at them and all of the strange noises surrounding them, and these animals were very steady throughout.

Let me backtrack a bit here and recommend that you visit the exhibition halls on the east end if you don’t ordinarily do so.  The photography exhibit in the Fine Arts building never fails to impress me.  And while I’m not a fan of the sewing/quilting etc. in Creative Arts, I do admire the quality of the work and respect the effort involved by those artists as well.  I always learn something new when I visit the Agriculture Building.  This year I learned that a honey bee on average makes just 1/12 teaspoon of honey during its lifetime, which is sort of the inverse of the kind of statistic you expect to be taught about Nature.

As dull as it sounds here, we had a swell time.  We saw all of our must-see things, spotted some new places to check out in coming years, and generally just amused ourselves for 8 hours.  I held us back a bit this year with my lack of energy, and I’ve made a promise to myself to be in better shape for 2013.  And, in fact, I’m feeling good enough now that I may wrangle a trip to the Rennaisance Festival before this season’s done.