Annual State Fair thread

Day 1 of the great MN get together starts today and gates are open. Who’s going?

Might go a day next week. Weather looks pretty decent. The heat dome has shifted south.

Goin tomorrow with the Belle.
Got front row for the Chicks

My woman had a couple girlfriends sleep over last night and I think they walked in to the fair at 7am. I find the place a complete nightmare so I don’t go. But I wish I could get in on the food.

I have not gone in quite a few years. Last time I did, I went with my sister and her family. They are vegan…and brought their own food…
DT

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Goin tomorrow with the Belle.
Got front row for the Chicks

is this Belle’s first MN state fair experience?

deertracker wrote:

They are vegan…and brought their own food

If it were not for the food I would never go to the fair. That being said I have not been in quite some time, once the kids had no interest we stopped going.

John Rasmussen wrote:

If it were not for the food I would never go to the fair.

I’m with you on that one. The variety of food there is the selling point for me too. Most everything else isn’t.

I think the wife and I may go on Sat. We have a party in the Metro on Friday and I figured we might as well hit the fair while we are in the metro. That will save use a extra drive some other day. I’m a BIG state fair fan. We tend to make it most years or at least every other year. I love all the different foods and the people watching.

I haven’t gone since I was 6 or so, and I wouldn’t mind going again at some point and drink a few beers and cheat with some $h!tty food. But the thought of going with A) all those people and B) bringing my 3 little girls is keeping me away for the time being.

My sister-in-law is a state fair nut so my wife and I live vicariously through her.

Vegans?! At the fair?!? Too funny
We go for the food and people watching. I’m outside, seeing stuff I don’t see everyday, eating stuff I don’t eat every day.
Brainless mindless couple hours of fun for us.

Too many people for my enjoyment. I do want the food. Do you think grub hub or something will deliver?

waldo9190 wrote:

B) bringing my 3 little girls is keeping me away for the time being.

Really starts to get expensive with a sizable family too. Family of four pays 72 bucks just to get in there.

If anyone can come up with a map with all the different beer places you get bonus points.

bigcrappie wrote:

If anyone can come up with a map with all the different beer places you get bonus points.

They publish a map every year of the specialty ones

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1. 23-specialty-sips.pdf

Rodwork wrote:

I do want the food. Do you think grub hub or something will deliver?

Dude, that’s brilliant!!!

We’ll go Saturday A friend is performing with a senior group at 9:00. I’ll be pushing my wife to be out before noon.

deertracker wrote:

I have not gone in quite a few years. Last time I did, I went with my sister and her family. They are vegan…and brought their own food…
DT

Awesome. The fair is quite possibly the least vegan friendly place on earth. Just thinking about it the only thing other than snack foods like popcorn that I could come up with at the fair that would qualify as vegan would be corn on the cob. Without any butter of course.

Awesome. The fair is quite possibly the least vegan friendly place on earth. Just thinking about it the only thing other than snack foods like popcorn that I could come up with at the fair that would qualify as vegan would be corn on the cob. Without any butter of course.

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Sweet corn without butter! That is just WRONG!

I saw a funny meme that went something like this. JOHNNY CREATED THE GROUP “BARBECUE”. BBQ TOMORROW AT MY PLACE, ANY VEGANS HERE? YEAH, ME! GLAD YOU ASKED. SARA HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE GROUP

We’re going Monday. I want at least one blueberry beer at the Schells booth. Just one though. I’d get pretty tired of the stuff if I had to drink two. One I enjoy. I wish to heck they’d have a bourbon tent with, say, fifteen of the top bourbon distillers in the country. I’d stay in the shade for quite a while in a tent like that.

Saturday is going to be insane with how the forecast is looking. Yikes.

We are doing something different this year — two half days. It’s too much to try to do it all in one long day.

Nothing like the fair. You walk through those gates and enter a different world for a day. Happy place to be.

I have a love/hate relationship with it. Hate crowds, but love food. I went yesterday on opening day because my office had a work outing. This meant free admission, so it’s hard to argue with that. I also parked on a residential street about 4 blocks away, so free parking.

Cloud cover and a breeze made the heat much more bearable than I thought it would be. VERY crowded but lines weren’t too bad in any one space.

Everything I ate was great:
Puff Daddy on a stick (Food building)
Pirogies (Food building)
Apple pie Ice cream (Food Building)
Australian Fried Potato Skins (Near the Colosseum)
Cheesecake Cheese Curds (might’ve been my favorite – LuLu’s commonhouse)
Dill Pickle Pizza (near 4H building – DEFINITELY lives up to the hype – FANTASTIC!)

Also had a few beers at LuLu’s – Surly’s One Man Mosh Pit Hazy IPA, REALLY GOOD. But at $11 for a $20oz, made limiting consumption easy.

Most places selling bottles water fro $3/crack but some asking $5. Here’s a hot tip. Bobby & Steves AutoWorld has a convenient store set-up on the East side of the grounds. They’re selling bottled water for as little as $1 and you just keep your empty and re-fill it at any water bottle filling station OR just bring your own bottle from home and water’s free. I should’ve done that but didn’t feel like carrying my hydro-flask around all day.

One more thing – I’ve always enjoyed the Northern Tool building and their offering of cheap import (but often handy) tools that they had bins and bins of for cheap.

But it was a TREMENDOUS LET-DOWN this year. They don’t have anything like that anymore. Just a few highlighted products on display and that’s is.

Clam had their latest ice shacks on display but no great deals that I could see.

There was also a deerstand company there – as in big enclosed platform stands of different sizes. Cool, but nothing special.

Didn’t even look at the Lund boats.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

One more thing – I’ve always enjoyed the Northern Tool building and their offering of cheap import (but often handy) tools that they had bins and bins of for cheap.

But it was a TREMENDOUS LET-DOWN this year. They don’t have anything like that anymore. Just a few highlighted products on display and that’s is.

Clam had their latest ice shacks on display but no great deals that I could see.

There was also a deerstand company there – as in big enclosed platform stands of different sizes. Cool, but nothing special.

Didn’t even look at the Lund boats.

Ally is the lady that’s was at clam yesterday she’s awesome, that’s my neighbors that run the veteran fishing guiding I help with.

It’s been a few years since we’ve went and last time I left unimpressed from crazy crowds, but it’d be nice to give it another shot. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day and days in a week (that are all beyond busy) that I doubt we will carve out time to get there.

If we do by chance go, I’ll be watching here for advice on things to check out.

I wanted to but just couldn’t pull the trigger.

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Taking the girls on Monday then going Saturday with just my wife. Fun both ways for us. Looks like the weather is cooling off nicely too.

Maybe a dumb question but where are the boats located in the fair? I heard Frankie’s and a Lund dealer are present somewhere??

I think they are usually on Machinery Hill, kind of by the tractors and other large buys.

Haven’t been since the last year befor Covid, it was insanely busy, if I recall the news reported over 200k in attendance, I think they were all there at the same time, the line for ANYTHING was at least 30 people long. We gave up trying to get anything to eat or drink and went and looked at the art and other exhibits. My cousin went the first year they had it after covid, said there was hardly anybody there, that would be ideal for me! My wife is thinking about going this year, I said I’d go if she wanted to spend the money – she asked what do you think we’d spend? Top of my head I said minumum of $200, after gas, tickets, parking (yeah I know there’s tons of free parking opportunities) and a couple $8 pronto pups and a few $8 beers. Guess she can find other ways to throw money away as I don’t think we’ll be going.