The Get-Together

Having just gotten back from the Great Minnesota Get-Together aka the State Fair or what I have deemed an exercise in excess it something ceartainly worth writing about. For those that haven’t had the experience of attending this state fair i’ll try to explain a little bit about it, but I must say that i’ll not do it justice.

First is the sheer size of the fair, by my guess, is at least 300 acres large and every available space is covered with a booth (mostly food.) Since I mentioned food it’s appropriate to explain the food in some detail. Just about everything from pie to pickles to pork chops comes on a stick. Second to that I would say that most things come fried, like cheese, candy bars, and chocolate covered bacon. The calorie consumption is staggering, by my estimation the amount of calories eaten in this 12 day fair could feed the country of Liechtenstein for a month.

Second thing that struck me about the fair is that it really does capture what I had pictured to be a State Fair. They had the 4-H kids out in force with their horses, cows, sheep, chickens, llamas, etc. I saw a 820 lbs. pumpkin and I hear there is the worlds largest pig at the fair but I didn’t happen upon him.

Finally is the sheer number of people visiting the fair, the street on friday is wall to wall people and I didn’t even stay for the night festivities so i’d only imagine it got worse than the daytime crowd. The only comparison I would have would be that of the street in Mong Kok in Hong Kong. It was an amazing place to visit, but towards the end I got tired of being crammed in with people stuffing themselves silly.

For those keeping track of my waterskiing prowess the count stands water 2, dug 0. The way i’ve come to see it is man wasn’t made to walk on water, for now… I’ll be back to give it another try, hopefully 100 lbs lighter.

Falling Down

Current Location: St. Paul, Minnesota

The list of thank-yous for the help I recieved in Michigan is long and important. Thank you to Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Homer, Uncle Davey, Aunt Gretchen, Cousins Jim, Renee, Rachel, Bob, Sarah, Mike, Bill, and Luke. Without all the support I recieved there Michigan wouldn’t have been half as fun as it was.

On a seperate note I have to apologize to the Mokihana boys for not being able to attend this years Air Guitar National Championship where Fatty “the Rockness Monster” competed again this year. He didn’t win but I hear a good time was had.

As for what I’ve been up to. I arrived in Minnesota about a week or so ago and all I can say that i’ve been doing is bicycling. On a normal day i’ll put out 40 miles but just today I upped it to 50 miles on a new route. I have also tried water-skiing for the first time and to say it went unsuccesfully would be the understatement of the year. Fortunately theres no photographic proof of this escapade. I hope to give it another go this weekend with some new advice from my uncle through another person he taught, “pretend you’re taking a dump in the lake.” So we’ll have to see how that goes.

I also got a chance to go tubing behing a power-boat and that is what I call ridiculous fun, all I do is laugh behind the boat the entire time as Jim tries to shake me off the tube. I’d reccomend tubing to all as it’s bound to have a theraputic effect on you, if you don’t go barreling into the water at 30 miles per hour.

Other than that i’m sort of preparing to head to Seattle in about a week and a half for a few weeks before heading down to LA where I can leave for New Zealand. Hard to belive that October is right around the corner.