Iowa State Fair

Did you know there is a famous novel written about the Iowa State Fair? It is called "State Fair." Since it is THE EVENT in Iowa (there are 1,818 miles of toilet paper set aside just for this event) Saturday we braved the heat and the other 94,486 people that had the same idea that we did and went to the fair.

Did you know there are 34 rides at the fair? The only ride we did was THE BUS we got to ride there and back to the park n' ride. This really was probably Ethan's favorite part of the whole experience, he sang "The Wheels on the Bus," the whole way home.

Did you know there are lots of animals at the fair, including a bull that weighs 3,122 lbs? We saw most of them, and don't worry, Brown Dog saw a lot of them too. We even watched a cattle show, the winning steer sold for $45,000 this year.

Do you know why this sheep is trying to gnaw his way out of his rod iron pen?

My guess is he doesn't want his wool to be used for knitting a pink nightmare to be displayed at the 2011 fair like the one pictured below.

Did you know the woman that made this quilt was ripped off? This photo quilt is made of about a million little squares, each one the size of a postage stamp. I can't even imagine cutting out all of those squares, let alone sewing them all together. AND she didn't even win a blue ribbon!

Did you know that a diaper can hold about 50 lbs. of water? We learned that as Ethan had a blast playing in the fountains.

Did you know that the famous butter cow sculpture is made from 600 lbs. of good Iowa butter?

We loved that there were also several butter sculptures with scenes from "Green Eggs and Ham," right now it is one of Ethan's favorite books.

"Would you could you with a fox, could you would you in a box?"

Did you know there are 58 foods on a stick offered at the fair? We didn't really try any, unless you count Clark's barbarian sized smoked turkey leg, I suppose a turkey bone is a stick of sorts. My friend Jessica tried a Twinkie on a stick dipped in white chocolate and rolled in pecans. I loved watching the kids with the healthy moms walking around eating hard boiled eggs on-a-stick, it made me laugh everytime. I can just imagine bribing the kids, "be really good and you can have a yummy egg on a stick." YUM! Ethan didn't get anything on a stick but he did get to stick his head in this flower:

and climb on this HUGE tractor:

The fair's slogan is "NON-STOP FUN," and it pretty much was until this little 2 year old just couldn't keep his eyes open any longer and fell right asleep.