Labor Day

It was still cool today. It IS Labor Day, we have been given fair warning, this summer thing is pretty much over. GRider wanted to make it to Vadnais again before her season ends (pretty soon). With the Fair to our south, the northern route seemed obvious. It was a nice day for riding and we found a pretty nice day at Vadnais.At this point the day still had a bunch of hours left. We had already spent time checking off an item that needed doing before summer ends. I had not been to the Fair yet this year so it seemed obvious what we should do next. In addition, I had excellent advance scouting done by Wireless that informed me that Heather was at the Fair. We decided that we needed to go to the Fair and to stop to say, "Hello" to Heather.I wanted to ask her about how things worked out for her during the state government shutdown but pretty much all she would say was something about being a geologist and working on sand and gravel surveys.

Hi, Heather.

We discovered that if you attend the Fair on the last day that some of the places that can be really, really crowded early in the event are quite accessible. Here is a 3rd prize winner in a perennial favorite, crop art.When we were in France in July there was a carnival set up in the Tuileries. They had one of these things right next to the Rue de Rivoli side. It looked to us like the this particular attraction was new to the French, they seemed extremely taken with it.Of, course, Americans still seem pretty taken with it too.

Princess Kay of the Milky Way and all of her Dairy Princesses, all carved in 90 pound chunks of real Minnesota butter.Last year I lamented the passing of the Saint Bernard's church dining hall. This year it is the Epiphany dining hall which is closing.According to the morning newspaper at one time there were nearly 20 church run dining halls at the Fair, next year there will be only two. In the old days you would see people walking around with a free sack that they had obtained somewhere, often from WCCO. These people would be accumulating coupons, free samples and other items which would fill the sacks. Now you mostly see people walking around with items of food in their hands. The Fair used to be a place to be exposed to new products, it now seems to be a place to be exposed to new foods.

We tried the Australian battered potatoes (thumbs down) and the walleye cakes (ok, no recommendation, decide for yourself) to go with the Danielson and daughters onion rings (thumbs up) and the pork chop on a stick (this year from Ragin Cajun in the Beer Garden, ok, nothing special).

We had fun.