We arrived at the State Fair and were greeted with the smell of animal poo mixed with the glorious smell of every deep-fried food imaginable, and thousands of people. We had made it a goal to see as many animals as possible – particularly of the squishy and cuddly variety and to try as many fair foods as we could stomach, which due to wallet constraints turned out to be fewer than I had hoped (fair food is seriously over-priced).

We started things out at The Miracle of Birth Center where we got tried to manuever our way through crowds to see baby cows a day old, lambs a few hours old, and piglets in the process of being born, while a growing crowd waited to watch a cow who was supposed to give birth at some point during the day.

We then squeezed our way out and went to check out the bunnies, which was thankfully much less crowded, and boy were there ever a lot of bunnies – row upon row in fact. I think a part of me may have died from cuteness overload that day.

The horse barn was a bit difficult to navigate and many of the stalls were empty, or the horses were getting ready for various shows (we didn’t know what or where as we couldn’t get anyone to tell us). Talk about some huge horses!  The majority that we saw were Percherons, and they were a sight to behold. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such big horses, to be honest. (Granted, I haven’t been around that many horses). They really were stunning, though, even if we could only see many of their rear-ends.

We spent most of the day walking around and soon realized that it was going to be very difficult to find anywhere to sit down. Every available bench or table was in use, so we decided to head over to the colliseum and watch some cows get judged. As we looked around we wondered if other people were just there to get out of the sun as well, or if they actually knew what was going on, because we certainly didn’t. Cow judging is a lot like curling or Nascar or other sports that are boring to watch from the sidelines. I don’t know how or why I get drawn in, but the cow judging was the same way… granted, Josh and I had our own commentary going, which made it slightly more interesting.

I think it was shortly after that we decided to head home. We had had our fill of deep-fried twinkies and root beer floats, and struggling with crowds. I definitely did not enjoy the crowds – especially the high volume of rude shovers and pushers. Will we go again next year? Probably not, but now I can say I went.