Yesterday we went to the Minnesota State Fair.

It had been raining earlier, but the radar imagery showed the weather should pass to the North of the fairgrounds. We'd made tentative plans to meet with one set of friends, and the wife had a desire to try to hook up with a co-worker before she bolted from the grounds. The missus and I set out a few hours before the friends with whom we had the tentative plans wanted to be there.

It was still dripping from the sky a little as we pulled up. Mrs had planned better and brought a raincoat; I had just a long-sleeved shirt. Neither of us thought of an umbrella until we were there. I figured we could get one inside, or at least find a fair poncho to purchase. No such luck. It was a touch cool, and the rain was even cooler, but it wasn't uncomfortably so. We managed to find places to be inside during the biggest downpours, and I suffered through the rest. It wasn't much suffering; I was just wet. She kept asking if I was cold; I apparently was to the touch, but I felt thermally comfortable, and wet.

The rain had the hidden benefit of wetting down any airborne irritants. I find the fair uncomfortable as it happens during the worst of my hay fever season. I was expecting to be irritated (nasally speaking), but was pleasantly surprised to find that I could breathe freely. I did have a sore throat from all of the post-nasal drip I've been subjected to lately, but a few lozenges along the way helped.

Half of the reason most of us city-folk go to the state fair is for the food. Anything you want, deep-fried, on a stick. OK, some of it is served on a paper plate, or in a paper cone, or some kind of paper platter. They also have a variety of exhibits for which Minnesotans can be proud, including a showing of "best of class" farm animals. These exhibits tend to provide distraction while one finishes their latest fried acquisition, or while they digest a little and discuss what to eat next.

The old stand-by is the corn dog; a wiener dipped in cornbread, deep fried, on a stick. The fair offers a Pronto-pup. I held that it was just a "brand name" corn dog, but my better half disagreed. As she bought one I asked the attendant. With pride she said it was a flour and wheat breading. As Mrs was exclaiming victory with a sharp "ha," the vendor added "cornmeal" to the list of ingredients; "just a very little" she promised. I still maintain that it's a corn dog.

Other bits we consumed were the ever healthy apple smothered in caramel, a buttermilk scone covered with strawberries and whipped cream, a platter of deep-fried cheese curds, and a bucket of chocolate chip cookies we brought home to enjoy for the next few days.

One new thing we tried was the Bananas Florentine. Slices of bananas, dipped and deep-fried, covered in caramel and powdered-sugar. The cooked banana slices were hard to cut smaller, and were gooey enough you just had to plop one in and suffer the consequences. Fortunately, they weren't the "vats of lava" that we feared; just a bit bigger than should have been stuffed in one's mouth.

Other than food, we did wander through other parts of the fair.

There's a large bazaar under the Grandstand. The Grandstand is the seating area overlooking a race track (that I don't think is used any more, but I could be wrong) and field where they perform the concerts. We didn't hear any music or racing, and figured that they cancelled the show with the thunderstorm. The bazaar is filled with all of the fast-talking infomercial-like introductions to products you never knew you needed, and wonder how you lived without. A lot of general vendors are here, too; fair specials on furniture and shoes and clothes you can get elsewhere, but evidently for less of a deal.

There's a smaller bazaar on opposite corners of the fair, too. One's an "Olde-Tyme West" style setup, and the other's an "international market." Both have food stands, of course, and some vendors selling wares that mostly make sense for the bazaar in which they've been placed. We didn't make it to the Herritage Village, but did wander through the International Market. It's setup not unlike the street vendors in your favorite tropical vacation spot. Nothing struck our fancy, so we made a quick pass through.

Next to the International Market is a tent under which are some Big Dog motorcycles; quasi-custom bikes with the big fat back tire, low seats over hard-tail suspensions, and some degree of chopper-like fork. $35,000 is a typical price; about double what I want to spend on a bike, but they do look nice.

Also near the International Market is the Agriculture/Horticulture building. We stopped in there as Mrs wanted to get a new set of ratcheting pruners; new and improved this year was a set with metal handles. They work like a charm, requiring little effort to slice through the largest branches--as big as you can squeeze into the thing. On the last two days of the fair the Horticulture building hosts the Dahlia Society's display; I usually hit that as a former father-figure displays his flowers there.

At one point we went through some of the livestock barns. We saw a pair of enormously puffy roosters; I don't think they were as big as they looked, but they looked as big as turkeys. We strolled through the horses looking for llamas, but found none. We did see them putting a horse and her foal away; and she got cranky when the offspring was tucked out of sight. We swung through the goats and sheep, still looking for llamas. Many of the sheep were funny in their bleating as they were being trimmed for show. We saw the largest boar at the fair; I want to say 1100 pounds, or was it 1400. I know that's a big difference, but he was a big pig. We looked at plenty of cows, too. They make that big pig look small.

The cows we have around here aren't like the cows that one might see in the mass-produced farms. They're clean, full-sized, generally happy-looking cows. More dairy than beef, I think, are raised around here, but plenty of beef are. They're generally given large fields in which to graze, and, except for the very end, lead pretty easy-going lives.

As we were leaving the livestock area we heard the announcement that Whiplash, the dog-riding monkey was soon to appear. We went to the Colosseum to try to sneak a peek. It just happened that as we approached, Whiplash, dog, and trainer were heading out to the prep corral just outside the Colosseum. In case you don't know, Whiplash is a little monkey (think of the one in Outbreak or Friends) who sits in a saddle on a border collie, who runs around for a bit, doing border collie tricks with a monkey on its back. They've been on Taco Bell commercials, too. The monkey is strongly strapped to the little saddle, and the trainer was working to secure it on the dog. As we stood a fair distance a way, the obviously harried trainer asked that we step back and "not stare at the monkey--he doesn't like it." Mrs pointed out that she was more interested in the dog, who seemed rather disappointed to be there. It was probably difficult with all of the sheep bleating nearby--border collies like to herd, and the like to herd sheep a lot.

We wandered back and forth a few times, crossing the same parts of the fair. Since the weather was icky we didn't linger too much at the things outside. We also didn't hit the Education building, which usually has some interesting projects put together by students from around the state.

As always, I parked North of Machinery Hill, where they display all of the farm implements, and Dodge and Ford now have displays. SOme of the old tractors are interesting to check out.

Our friends bailed on us, probably because of disinterest or the weather. Wimps. I'm glad we went, though; I opted out for today, so I could tinker with my computers and catch up on some well-deserved movie watching on cable. In all, except for eating nothing but dessert, the evening was a good time.