The past week or so was one of the best in Minnesota for me. Labor Day brings the Great Minnesota State Fair to a closure, after an exciting 10 day run. Ellen and I spent Sunday a week ago at the fair. It was perfect weather and lots of other folks joined us there!!
One of my favorite things to do is give the machinery a good look. Machinery Hill isn’t what it
was when I was a child spending time at the fair, but it still has some great things to look at. This year there was a nice selection of Minneapolis-Moline tractors on display. These were solid old tractors produced right here in Minneapolis for many years.
I also like to visit the energy building. It has more and better things each year. There was a large selection of ‘green building’ ideas, ranging from electricity
production to recycling to composting. There were several interactive booths this year that were getting a good workout. While waking around I ran into Dean Barkley at his booth. Dean is running for Minnesota Senate in the Independence Party. He put in a lot of time at the fair this year, as did most of our state-wide office candidates. We ended out day with a ride over and back across the fair on the cable gondola. That is a fun way to see the fair grounds and give you a good idea how many people and exhibits it holds!
Then last weekend we spent time in Carlton County at Jay Cooke State Park. We took a long hike on one of the many trails the park folks maintain. We started off at the ‘swinging bridge’ over the St. Louis River.
There were many fall wildflowers in the park. I couldn’t find any of the Showy Ladyslipper as I had in the past, but did find lots of other pretty flowers…
