Minnesota State Fair and more

When my brother Mike said he was going to the Minnesota State Fair on opening day, I told him I would be happy to join him if he needed a partner. He is generally known for marathon visits, and his wife, Bonnie, will not join him. He lived up to the hype – 12 ½ hour visit with over 13 miles covered. The old guy with heart issues kicked my A_S!

I had a great time learning about changes at the Fair. First, you no longer needed to go to the Beer Garden to sip 3.2% beer. Beer, wine and mixed drinks were served everywhere, and you could even carry on the Fairgrounds. Much of machinery hill, which today has very few pieces of farm equipment on display, has been filled up with buildings, mega eateries and other attractions. Before the day was up, the Minnesota State Fair proved to me that here, you can get anything on a stick!

We’ve been walking all over the Dakota County Regional Park system. Nearly every one has a lake with a path around it and beautiful viewing. We find a geocache or two around most lakes. We even spotted a lone Green Heron sitting on Jensen Lake.

We have been to the Mall of America many times, sometimes just to get 3 or 4 miles in when the weather was hot, sometimes to meet family and watch the young’uns having a blast in the enclosed Nickelodeon amusement park. This particular day we spent at Cowboy Jacks because we couldn’t get the Fox Sports Channel at the RV park, and needed to catch the Vikings preseason game.

Wednesday was Margaritas on the Mississippi. The Woman stumbled on this – a happy hour cruise on the Jonathan Paddleford with margaritas and a taco bar. I had been wanting to get out on the water at some point while we were here, and today was as good a chance as any.

We had a really nice time. The weather was great. The bartender told us the crowd was pretty light – last week they hosted 200 folk, and tonight there were only going to be about 70. People were all over the banks of the river enjoying the pleasant weather. There were even some locals who managed to get a good seat and watch the Paddleford pass on by.

One day we got to visit cousin Diane in her back yard. Diane volunteers at a raptor rescue sanctuary headquartered in Texas. Every summer the come up to the Twin Cities with several birds and do nature shows next to the DNR building at the Minnesota State Fair. They put on a back-yard show for Diane’s family and neighbors, and we got invited. This Cara Cara, also known as the Mexican Bald Eagle, is something we saw a lot in the wild in South Padre last winter.

The birds at the sanctuary are all either injured or too used to people to be released in the wild. We got to see a Bald Eagle, some Harris Hawks and 4 different species of owls. While the Woman didn’t get to actually hold this Cara Cara, she was able to hold a full-sized Screech Owl. What fun! I got to hold it also, but I wasn’t no sissy. I took the Screech Owl onto my bare fore finger. I didn’t even feel a pinch.

We had to make one more attempt at getting the Woman a Juicy Lucy before we left town. In the Twin Cities, there are many bars that claim to be the originators of the Juicy Lucy – two burger patties pinched together at the edges, stuffed with cheese, and grilled. Matt’s Bar on Cedar in south Minneapolis is what we believe is the true originator of the Juicy Lucy. We used to head there after any softball games when I worked for McGladrey that were held in south Minneapolis fields.

We planned our visit to Matt’s for after 1 PM, thinking that maybe the lunch crowd might have subsided a bit by then. Well, we were dead wrong. While I got excited when we arrived that there was no lineup outside, we soon learned that the line was there, but just inside the exterior door. Anyway, we each had a Juicy (and a couple Sierra Nevada Pale Ales) and so our cravings, at least for this visit, have been satiated.

Talk to you soon.