Minnesota

We left on Saturday, and overnighted at the Shehu’s in Indianapolis. Driving to Minnesota Sunday, we stayed in Woodbury and went to the fair on Monday. $16 for parking, $16 each for admission. This is certainly one of the larger fairs, probably second only to Texas. The weather was a perfect sub-80°, and the crowd was sparse, likely due to COVID. Just inside the gate we found the ‘Birthing Barn’ which displayed, pigs, cows, chickens, goats and sheep and their very young offspring. Each animal brood had an attendent that explained the care and feeding of the babies, and even allowed us to touch and pet them. We then went through the cow barn, pig barn, and poultry barn. Each were clean and well-kept. Lisa was disappointed to find the horse barn closed to the public. Other than the birthing barn, there were no rabbits either. The Horticulture building was nice, we were especially impressed by the ‘seed art’. The 4H and other visual arts buildings were well-presented. The butter sculptures were different at this fair in that each sculptor was tasked with making a self-sculpture. These were works in progress, some were done, others had not yet been started.

We ate Walleye on a stick, Roasted corn on the cob, Thanksgiving-in-a-bowl, Snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich, vanilla/chocolate cream puff, and Sweet Martha’s cookies. Along with the cookies we visited the all-you-can-drink milk tent ($2 each).

From a COVID perspective, there were signs everywhere urging indoor mask usage, and a few exhibits that required masks. Overall, I would guess the mask usage was about 10%.