Well, several of you guessed correctly last night – today Ben and I went to the Iowa State Fair! WHICH is in the “1,000 Places to See Before You Die Book”! I love this book – I highlight and date all the places I’ve been to that are included in it, so I can look back and remember everything that I’ve done when I’m old and wrinkled

The Iowa State Fair is one of the highlights of my summer and I’ve gone every year that I can remember. The food, the animals, the culture, the people watching – oh, the people watching – are all so uniquely Iowa. I just love it!

The State Fair is Iowa’s largest event, which attracts a million visitors from all over the Midwest, as well as the rest of the U.S. and many foreign countries.

 

My personal favorite part of the fair is the FOOD. All diets go out the window when it’s fair time! I started the morning off with some hot, sugary JR Miniature Donuts!

Seriously – these are one of the best things on earth – a must have for any fair visitor!

Ben started his eating adventures with his favorite fair food – Cheese Curds!

Naturally, I had to have some. Crunchy, gooey and oh-so-delicious!

Ben’s sooooo happy – he looks forward to these cheese curds all year long!

 

We finished off our eating extravaganza with a Foot Long Corn Dog, which is my #1 favorite fair food of all time. The light & crispy batter is something that you can only find at the fair, and is just to die for. Sadly, the moment we bought this to share is when my fair food fun came to end. Since I don’t eat fried foods, the JR donuts took my body for a wicked spin and I couldn’t stomach even a single bit of the dog…I was SO upset!!!!

Ben tackled the entire foot long himself…what a champ.

Now you can’t possibly talk about state fair foods without mentioning the phrases:

• On a stick
• Deep fried
• Chocolate covered

Here are the worst offenders I found:

Chocolate covered bacon & deep fried pineapple (that poor pineapple!!)

Deep fried mac & cheese and…well…pretty much anything you can think of dipped in chocolate. This year they had frozen peanut butter “pucks” dipped in chocolate! Holy cow – I would have scarfed this if I hadn’t just polished off a big bag of donuts!

Ok ta
ke a moment to recover. That was a lot of grease and chocolate…

So my second favorite part of the state fair is the animals.

First we hit up the sheep barn:

This one just kept staring out the side of his pen…sad sheep!

Here’s the fair’s Biggest Ram!

Next we saw the pigs. I wonder what this one is dreaming of…probably flying…

There were pigs running around everywhere in the barns…I almost got steamrolled half a dozen times!

O…M…G… look at this pig tongue!! We were walking by a pen and Ben stopped dead in his tracks when he saw this. This pig was sleeping with his tongue hanging out!

Of course it wouldn’t be the Iowa State Fair without seeing the Biggest Boar:

This guy…was massive…in every way. Oh dear.

Some more animals:

 

And finally the fair’s biggest bull.

Ummm…this thing is bigger than a Buick. Check out the fan behind it so you can get a sense of how big it is!

Next we went to the Agriculture building.

The agriculture building is where they hold the competitions for best/biggest fruits, vegetables, etc. This pumpkin is the size of a small child…

The inside of the Agriculture building:

The agriculture building also holds what the Iowa State Fair may be most known for: the Butter Cow! Yep – this thing is made entirely of butter! Last year they had a butter Shawn Johnson, in addition to the cow. HA!

 

Butter udder:

Here are some of the fruits & veggies that are all vying for first place.

Other rando pictures from the fair!

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I can’t remember a single time that I’ve been to the Iowa State Fair where it hasn’t been 95+ degrees and semi-miserable at times. Today it was a little cooler with a fabulous breeze. This, coupled with great company and great eats, resulted in another successful Iowa State Fair visit!!

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What’s your favorite fair food? Do you have a state fair? Is it a big deal where you live?