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I am at the airport and just waiting for my flight. 

Breakfast disappointingly lacked sticks!

The airport keeps running an announcement with "tips" for controlling the spread of germs:

1. Cover your mouth when you cough.

2. Wash your hands.

If people in this country actually need these tips, I am more worried about the spread of stupid than of germs.

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Safe on the ground in MN. Next step: shuttle!

Still no food on sticks, alas. Also very little seed art or cattle so far, and no butter sculpture at all!

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My shuttle driver is lolarious. No, my name is not Allison. I'm staying at the Radisson.

Also we started up and he turned out to be BLASTING lite rock.

IIIIII HAAAAD
THE TIME OF MY LIFE...

Now we're bumpin' Big Yellow Taxi. That's how we roll in the twin cities, yo.

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On the shuttle to the fair.

STICKS BEWARE.

This is my fourth shuttle of the day. Omg please drivers stop talking to me.

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AT LAST

Food on a stick!

Delicious spicy frydog with BBQ sauce. Note stick!

It turns out I am exceptionally bad at eating food on sticks.

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More butter than I've ever seen in one place before.

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For the knitters...it's merino.

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Oh god, I'm like a five year old. If I get this out in a coherent story it'll be a miracle.

SO WE WENT TO THE FAIR.

And I was STARVING so the first thing we did was get Fry Dogs at Blue Moon Drive In Diner, which is hilarious you buy the food and then go around back and sit on car seats and watch a movie while you eat. Does anyone know what film the song "7 1/2 Cents" comes from? Because that's what we watched while we NOMMED US SOME FRYDOGS.

Frydogs are hot dogs wrapped in hash browns, basically. I found mine delicious; Lucky was less impressed with his. Mum didn't get one but did like their raspberry lemonade.

Then we went to the cattle barn.

You guys, cows are bigger than I thought. Like, I've seen some cows, but never cows like these. These cows loomed. I'm pretty sure there's some elephant in them. BIG COWS OKAY.

We were looking for the butter sculptures which turned out to be in the dairy exhibit across the fairgrounds, and we didn't stay long because it was hot and Mum wasn't feeling so well. So instead we went to the agricultural building and got HONEY CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM and gawped at produce.

Eventually Mum and Lucky said they wanted to see the Eco Exhibit, which was way north, so we got to see a lot of stuff along the way, like A PARADE. With a puppeteering troupe from Minneapolis, dressed as dung beetles for GREAT LOLZ. There may have been cinnamon-roasted almonds still hot from the roaster, but if you think there are any left you are mistaken, for I have eaten them all.

Traveling with Mum is a little like traveling with a toddler you can't carry when they get tired, so after the Eco Building -- which I found interesting but not especially fascinating -- we trekked back to the shuttlebus to the hotel. I'm leaving out a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing at various things, and also a story about how buying taffy for a stranger at the fair is one of the strangest come-ons ever, but I have eight million emails to read.

So far Food In Cones (ice cream, roasted nuts) is actually defeating Food On Sticks. BUT NOT FOR LONG.

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OH AND:

1. Mum mocked me MERCILESSLY about the whole broken ankle thing, by pointing out every time we were about to step off a curb. Or any time a curb was nearby. Or far off but impending.

2. I GOT MY REVENGE when she and Lucky excitedly informed me that there was a sushi booth nearby. Sushi at a state fair seemed a bit like Russian Roulette with one's digestive system, but I gamely said "Where?"

They both turned and pointed to a sign that, for a split second, did seem to read SHAVED ICE AND SUSHI.

Until I realised that was ridiculous, and it actually said SHAVED ICE AND SLUSHIE.

I may have LOLed about this all afternoon long.

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Mum is reading through the coupon book we got for the State Fair.

She is not wearing her glasses.

Mum: $2 off a pork tenderloin smoothie? What the hell is a pork tenderloin smoothie?
Sam: Are you sure this isn't another Sushi/Smoothie issue?
Mum: No, look, it very clearly says smoothie! Pork tenderloin smoothie!
Sam: It's pork tenderloin slash smoothie. You can get $2 off one or the other.
Mum: Oh.

*five minutes pass*

Mum: Soft serve cone hash browns! WHAT ARE SOFT SERVE CONE --
Sam: Is there a slash?
Mum: Oh. Yeah there is. *facepalms* DAMN THE SLASH!
Sam: *tries not to lol*
Mum: But think of all the great foods I've invented! Soft serve hash browns!
Sam: I think those are called Mashed Potatoes.
Mum: SHUSH YOU. You could put your pork tenderloin smoothie in your soft serve cone of hash browns!
Sam: And I guarantee someone will eat it. Especially if you put it on a stick.
Mum: Will that someone be you?
Sam: If not me, R definitely will.