Up, up and away to your (adjective) Day at the Minnesota State Fair!
After a no-fair year, the Minnesota State Fair is back. Whether you're planning to get vaccinated, mask up, and attend — or if you're sitting this one out — here's your chance to fill in some blanks and remember what makes Great Minnesota Get-Togethers so great.
Your adventure starts at the gate. No, scratch that, your adventure starts in bumper to traffic on the way over, remembering far too late that you could have gotten to the fairgrounds much easier by .
But then you through the gates and the scent of deep-fried and blue ribbon hits you right through your mask.
Turn , and you're surrounded by pumpkins the size of . Throughout the summer, they basked in the heat, growing fat, orange and , waiting for their 12 days in the spotlight and their shot at a ribbon. You pull on your mask and head inside the Agriculture-Horticulture Building to this year's yield of crop art. You discover how many kernels of you would have to glue together to make one life-sized portrait of riding a while dressed like a
Turn , and you're suddenly in line at Ye Old Mill, watching crowds of passengers disappear down a tunnel, holding hands and .
From there, follow your to new foods invented on a dare for this year's fair. Folks say there's a booth that takes a wad of , batters it in , dunks it in the deep fryer, rolls it in , drizzles it with , then serves it on a !
But before you indulge, and while your stomach is empty and your heart is full, get in line for the Giant Slide. Grab a mat made out of , climb stairs to the top, and all the way down, as generations have done before you.
As you look to the sky, you spy the dangling of Sky Glider passengers as they soar from one corner of the fairgrounds to the other. From that height, they can see it all. The Grandstand. The Mighty Midway. The clip-clopping in and out of the livestock barns. The crowds gathered around the Star Tribune booth to see what this year's lip balm smells like. (Hint: It's .)
Back at ground level, a sculptor sits in a revolving , carving into likenesses of Princess Kay of the Milky Way and her court. Come to the Dairy Barn for the sculpture, stay to order a frosty .