MN State Fair Recap

M and I had a great Labor Day weekend. We slept in everyday until 9 - considering we get up between 5:30 and 5:45am everyday, that felt amazing - spent time with his family (Happy birthday to his dad!), went to lake, went on a bike ride, and ended our weekend with a trip to the MN State Fair.

I have been hearing about the MN State Fair since I was in college (when I had friends from MN). Everyone would talk about the food, the people watching, the Miracle of Birth barn, etc. Michael has been talking for weeks and since he didn't make it last summer, he really wanted to go this year.

Michael's mom bought all of us tickets for the Monday night concert (more on that later in the post) so M and I decided to make a day out of it. We got there around 1 and met up with our friends Lara and Jordan. We walked through the barns and Michael asked me lots of questions about farming. I could pretty much only answer the questions about cows but it was fun to reminise about my days growing up on a farm. My favorite part was when we were in the Miracle of Birth barn and Michael said "The calf was just born," and my response was "No it wasn't. It's not even slimy." Then I pointed to a video of a cow giving birth and said "That is what a newborn calf looks like."

After the barns, we ate some food - cheese on a stick (not my fave), fried pickles (yum!), Sweet Martha's Cookies (YUM!) before walking the Midway. M and I watched L and J ride a ride, which was fun. L wasn't a fan afterwards but they looked like they were having a good time when they were on it. The also attempted to win Whack-a-Mole, but some 15 year old boy beat them :-(

Jordan, Lara, me and Michael

Whack-a-Mole

Jordan only lost by 10 points.

Getting ready for the ride to start.

They are somewhere on the ride.

After that, we parted ways and Michael and I went on an eating frenzy for the rest of the day. The average fair attendee eats something like 3000 calories each day. I'm sure we did that. We got some mini donuts (warm and delicious), corn on the cob (best corn I've ever had!), and a chocolate milk shake (OMG - GOOD!).

I also kept seeing people walking around in these ridiculous fish hats, so when we found where they were giving them away, I insisted we get a picture in them.

We walked around all day so by late afternoon, we were getting tired. We ended our day in the Horticulture barn, which had a cool Minnesota Wine Association area and they were selling MN wine. Since we love wine, we got some of that too!

I loved that they came in a tray in the shape of MN.

We met up with Michael's family (sans Molly, who is at college - we missed you, Mol!) and ate a BBQ dinner (always good) before heading to the concert. The concert headliners were Maroon 5 and Train, and Matt Nathanson opened for them. Nathanson played a quick, 7 song set but was pretty good. The only song I knew was his radio hit "Come on get high."

We all expected Train to be next but apparently the groups alternate who goes first each night that they play, and we were pleasantly surprised when Maroon 5 started playing "Moves Like Jagger" to open their set. They were REALLY good. I may or may not have listened to a Maroon 5 Pandora station all day yesterday...

Adam Levine wore a hoodie - loved it.

Did I mention we were literally in the last row? Despite it being cold, the seats were not bad!

Maroon 5 played an awesome set, moving easily from song to song and keeping the crowd engaged. It was a lot of fun to sing along to their songs and hear some of their oldies but goodies.

There was A LOT of lag time between their set and Train - like 45 minutes. And since it was so cold, it felt like forever. They did put trivia up on the video screens, which helped pass the time, but it still took a long time. I hate that about concerts.

Love of my life.

Michael, me and his mom.

Michael's fam.

I like Train, but I have to say - they sucked. It was really disappointing. They covered 5 different people's songs - hello, play your own music - and the lead singer was kind of an a-hole. We ended up leaving early b/c we weren't really engaged, we had all seen who we wanted to see (Maroon 5), it was late, and we were cold. I was kind of bummed we missed "Hey Soul Sister" but they closed the encore with it so had we stayed for it, we wouldn't have been home until after midnight.

Train (obvioulsy).

Overall, I'd say it was a good first State Fair experience. Now I need to work out this week to burn off all those extra calories!