Uniquely Iowa

We went down to the Iowa State Fair tonight--which, incidentally is celebrating its sesquicentennial. 150 years of the fair is pretty cool. The thing you have to realize about the Iowa State Fair is that it is the state fair to rival all others. Other states look at Iowa's fair and just turn green with envy. There is nothing more uniquely Iowan than the fair. And I'm so glad I get to experience it.

The funny thing about the fair is how predictable it is. I mean, even the midway rides were in the same place as they were last year. Of course, this did not matter to Anna who just wanted to ride rides until she passed out from pure exhaustion. The only trouble is you can hardly ride the midway rides unless you're independently wealthy or just don't want to eat for the next week. Although after you've eaten fair food, you may not have to eat for a week, so maybe I'm on to something there.

Fair food is not what you would call healthy. Pretty much any kind of food they can put on a stick they will. In fact, this comes from the Iowa State Fair's trivia page.

Approximately how many types of food can be purchased "on-a-stick" at the Fair? More than 20. The list includes pork chops, dill pickles, corn dogs,
cheese, Cajun chicken, caramel apples, German sausages, beef, cotton candy,
veggie corn dogs, turkey drumsticks, nutty bars, chocolate cheesecake, hot
bologna, chocolate covered bananas, taffy, fried pickles, honey, wonder bars and
deep fried Twinkies. New in 2004, meatballs-on-a-stick!

We had a deep fried Milky Way on a stick (also known as heart attack on a stick) but it was quite yummy and totally worth it. Last year I sampled the deep fried Oreo cookies which were good, but not as exciting as you might have thought. The yummiest thing you can buy on a stick though is pork chop on a stick--they sold 60,000 of these suckers in the 10 days of the fair last summer! And technically, they're not really on a stick--the "stick" is just a conveniently cut out bone--but dang they were good.

But perhaps the oddest thing about the fair this year was the weather. Granted it was just opening day, but it just didn't fit expectations. Here in Iowa, we have what we call "State Fair weather" which everyone knows is the hottest, stickiest, muggiest possible weather you can imagine and then multiply it by 100. When we went last year, it was definitely State Fair weather--you can tell because you're seriously tempted to go naked rather than have to deal with any layer of clothing. This year, I not only wore jeans, but Heidi and Anna were both wearing sweaters by the end of the night. That's right--it was 69 degrees in Des Moines today. While it was a welcome change, it was simply bizarre. There's just no other word for it.

The Iowa State Fair--it made the book of 1000 places to see before you die. Don't you think it's time you showed up?