Iowa State Fair

These are the pictures from the Iowa State Fair. Its a really big fair and everyone we ran into just raved about it. So we packed a bunch of water and sunscreen last Friday and went to the fair. We printed off a map and directions. When we made it to Des Moines however we discovered the directions had a wrong turn listed. Where it said turn left we really wanted to go right. Luckily the fair grounds are huge and there was a lot of traffic headed that way so we were able to find it. Daren decided that he didn't want to pay for parking so we ended up walking about 15 blocks to get to the gate, only to find that parking inside the grounds was still open for only 7 dollars. By the end of the day he was wishing he would have parked closer and paid a little money. All in all the fair was a lot like Idaho's just lots!!! bigger. We were really impressed with the world's biggest bull. Although I felt sorry for him tied so tight not able to reach his water, not to mention the effort it took him to stand up and lay down. The biggest pig at the fair wasn't quite so impressive after seeing the bull. The pumkin/squash thing almost wieghted as much as the pig. In another building we found the worlds smallest cow and her calf. If you can't tell by the picture our old dog Bear was lots bigger than this cow. The sheep next to it were bigger than it. When we were walking through the buildings there was this huge crowd of people by one pen, and since we'd already seen the biggest pig and cow and the smallest cow we were excited to find out what this crowd was about. Only when we got up there it was just an elk!!! Domestic or ranch raised elk is really popular out here and you can find elk meat in the grocery stores in Des Moines. We also caught a grizzly bear show. It was an okay show. Daren was picking on me during it. I was a little annoyed the way the handlers kept saying the bears were just like pets at home, they enjoy getting love, attention, and treats. All I could think of are all the stupid people in Yellowstone who get out of their cars to get closer. I was glad at the end when they did a spill about wild bears and how not to feed them in the wild because then they become problem bears and are destroyed. After that I had a little more respect for the bear show. It was a pretty fun day. Everyone at work told Daren he had to try a deep fried snickers but by the time we found the booth we were to tired and to full to care. So next year we'll have to get that booth earlier. Oh, and the random old rotatillor was for Daren. There were lots of buildings with antiquets and pioneer stuff. When we came across the rotatillor Daren wanted to take a picture to send to my mom showing her how crapy gardening could have been. The only other really exciting thing that happened was that I found some old Louis LaMour books. I got 11 of them for 30 dollars. I was really excited about that and Daren was even more excited when I didn't make him carry them all day. The other picture is off the butter cow. In one of the buildings they had a case displaying ice sculptures and another one displaying butter sculptures. All of them were very cool...strange...I'm not sure, but they had the first moon walk, a tv, and this cow all made of butter. I thought it was weird and Daren wanted proof we'd seen it, so there you go.