MINNESOTA STATE FAIR 2013

(Attendance figures came out two days after this was written.  236,197 people were at the fair on this date making it the largest single day crowd in the history of any state fair in the country)
     STATE FAIR 2013

    We know the Minnesota State Fair is basically the same every year.  I lived out of state for 27 years. When I went to the fair my first year back almost nothing had changed.  Many rides on the midway are different and there are now a few Mexican food stands.  But as far as I know these are the identical cows, horses, goats and pigs that I used to see in the 60’s and 70’s.

    Why do I go to the fair if everything is the same every year?  I think it’s partly a feeling of tradition and loyalty.  After all, the Minnesota State Fair is the “largest state fair in the United States by average daily attendance.”  You can look THAT up on Wikipedia.

    Also, if I miss the fair one year, I’ll have to wait another 50 and-a-half weeks for its return.  At my age I just can’t take that chance anymore.

    I missed the fair completely last year by a rare fluke.  I decided that I wasn’t going to the fair unless the high temperature was below 80 degrees.  That shouldn’t have been hard since the average high is in the 70’s this time of year.  But it never cooled off.

    This year we had a cool summer.  But once again the temperature skyrocketed as soon as the fair came to town.  Temperatures were setting record highs in the 90’s.  Attendance was down.  Finally, on the 11^th day of the fair’s 12 day run, a high of 76 degrees was predicted. 

    I got up on that 11^th day, today, a Sunday, at 8AM.  By 8:20 I was on the road.  At 8:50 I arrived at my usual parking spot, a dead-end street three-quarters of a mile from the fair.  From here, I walked to the fair sooner than the rest of the fairgoers who were paying up to $15 to park closer.

    I’d made a list, taken from newspaper and Internet sites, of the food stands I wished to sample this year.  I got to the scotch egg stand first.  A scotch egg is a hard-boiled egg surrounded by a lot of dough and then deep fried.

    I was shocked to find 23 people in line at this stand.  I don’t like waiting in lines.  No problem.  I walked a couple blocks to the next place on my list which specialized in battered and deep fried olives on a stick.

     Finding many of the places on my list was not easy.  The addresses that had been given for the food stands were for the general area…and they were generally wrong.  The olive stand for instance was not west of the grandstand ramp.  It was east of the grandstand ramp.  What WAS on the west side of the grandstand ramp was the end of the waiting line for the olive stand.  There were 57 people in line here!

     At this point I realized that I probably wasn’t the only person who’d strategized coming to the fair early on the first cool day in two years with a prospective list of favorite places.  I decided to try back later for my olives.

    There WAS no line at the giant piece of bacon on a stick for four-dollars.  After squeezing the grease out of the bacon with napkins, the giant bacon was almost regulation size.  But I loved it.

    I searched diligently but was unable to locate the taco sliders.  And after the bacon, I decided my gall bladder might not take kindly to the spam curds.  I was nearing the end of my list.

    I toured the Exxopolis Luminarium, a brightly colored multi-chambered air pressured plastic structure.  Then the Minnesota Highway booth to pick up a free map of the state.

     Then back to the fried olive stand.  They had a second window open.  But between the two lines I now counted 163 people! 

     I stumbled away from there and came upon a maze.  I’ve loved mazes since I was a kid, watching Laurel and Hardy get lost in the Oxford Maze.  I eagerly paid the five dollars and went in.

     It took me less than two minutes before I realized what I’d done.  I’d already exhausted myself from a morning of bumbling around the fairgrounds, unable to find the food I wanted and needed for sustenance.  Now I’d intentionally gotten myself lost in a maze…and paid five dollars for the privilege.

     I decided to back track and get out.  It was way too late for that.  And it made no sense to ask directions or follow anyone to get out.  We were all lost.

    I noticed a gaggle of adults looking down on us mazers from a stand set up above us.  I guessed these were the parents.  Was I the only adult here?  I could feel my face getting red.  Was it the heat…or the first stage of embarrassment.  A signpost up ahead.  An emergency exit.  I take it.  I’m outta there.

    I had had enough of this fair.  Heading for the exit I watched for a decent food stand with a short line.  Only a short wait for a bag of Tom Thumb donuts requested by my wife before I left home.

    The scotch egg stand was across the street from me on the way out.  And there was no one in line!  But how to cross the street.  By now it was almost 1 PM and there were two thick streams of people creeping zombie-like in opposite directions.

    I doubt I’m the first person to think of this solution:  I mingled with the crowd walking to the right.  Half a block later I had mingled myself to the center of the street where I turned around and walked back, angling slowly to the right and ending up right in front of the scotched egg plant.

    Seven dollars seemed a bit high for an egg basically surrounded by a donut.  But it WAS tasty, and I was content to have eaten at two of the nine places on my bucket list.

    I’m already working on refinements to my strategy for next year’s fair.  One of them is to buy TWO bags of Tom Thumb donuts for my wife instead of only one.  You can guess what happened to those 16 sugared mini-delicacies on the way home.

                                     That is all,

                                       Dan Shepard