State Fair Part 1: What We Did

Neither of us had ever been to a state fair. In fact, here's all I've ever heard of them: 1. When I was roommates with Ashley, she could only afford to go home once that year, so she chose to stay in Utah at CHRISTMAS so she could go home to see the state fair. I thought she was nuts. (No offense, Ashley!) 2. I knew there was an old musical called State Fair. That's it.

However, everyone out here has been talking about it non-stop, so Mike and I decided to try something new. We headed down to Des Moines yesterday to see what all the fuss was about!

Parking was CRAZY, but the carnival atmosphere was very fun. Here's a few of the things we did.

We went browsing through the tents filled with all sorts of crazy things to buy. My favorites were some disappearing ink and these two hats. (Look closely at the tops of our heads!)

We rode the Skyglider, which is this thing that lifts you in the air and takes you slowly over the park. It was fun, except for the time that we stopped right over a dad changing his little girl's diaper!

We went on the Old Mill ride. It was basically just a boat ride in the dark, so I couldn't get pictures inside of it, but here's the old mill and us in the boat just as it started.

We rode the gravitron. (Yeah, remember that old thing that spins you around so fast that you can't lift yourself or your arm or head off the wall?) We were both kind of dizzy after that!

We went to a cooking show. They were selling cookware. Very EXPENSIVE cookware, I might add, which meant that (of course) we wanted to buy some. But we didn't. The show was still fun, and the sample food was still very good.

And of course, we went to see the animals. That wasn't my favorite part (a little too stinky for my tastes), but you have to do that at the State Fair!