Saturday, August 14, 2010

Wiscosin State Fair and an Ice Road Trucker

Today, we went to the Wisconsin State Fair with some friends.  It has been a few years since we had visited, in fact Zack may have never been.  Kevin was owed a funnel cake after missing out at our local art festival.  For those who don't know, a funnel cake is a fried pancake of squiggled dough covered in powdered sugar.  Fried foods seem to be a standard for fairs, and looking at a list of offered items of "food on a stick"(yes, there is a State Fair web page for food on a stick) there was just about everything available.  Even fried cream cheese with bacon on a stick.  We didn't see that offering during our visit but we did see this...
We saw some animals, then stopped in at the Wisconsin Products Pavilion.  This has always been my favorite place to get food.  Local producers and organizations offer a variety of samplings.  We all shared some apple cider donuts, washed down with chocolate malt milk.  I had a stuffed baked potato with choose your own toppings.  Then we stopped and bought some maple sugar cotton candy.  The rest of the fair is pretty much food and product vendors.  There is a whole building of as seen on TV products. I was thankful for the air conditioning in the building.  Kevin got tired feet part way through the aisles and he and I took a break in the hallway where state 4-H projects were displayed.

On the way back to the some of the food vendors we spotted a celebrity... 
Alex Debogorski from the History Channel's Ice Road Truckers was at the fair meeting fans. The boys in the group all talked with Alex and got autographed pictures.  Chad and Alex talked about the road conditions for semis in Wisconsin and how the ice can be more slippery here than on the Ice Road because of the temperature flucuation near the freezing point in Wisconsin.

Heading to eat, Kevin wanted spiral cut fried potatoes.  He sprinkled BBQ seasoning on his.
Chad and I shared ribs and sour cream and chive fries.  

Last stop for viewing was the rabbit and poultry barn that was closed in the morning.
Zack liked the baby rabbits in the cage with the mom.  He didn't know that I showed rabbits at the State Fair when I was a kid.  I'll have to show him the ribbons and pictures someday.
On the way home we grabbed a 6 pack of the famous State Fair Cream Puffs.  Kevin snapped a picture of the "guarded" delivery trailer that transported the desserts to the satellite sales station.  It went by quite often, so I'm sure a lot of cream puffs were sold today.
We dropped a couple off for my parents on the way home and enjoyed the rest later.  I don't know why we thought we needed more fair food but they are quite good.  Is it a conincidence that an amblance service is advertising on the box?  I'm surprised one of the other sponsors wasn't a cardiac cath lab.