Iowa State Fair

A group of my friends and I headed over to Des Moines (French for Monks) for the Iowa State Fair a couple of weeks ago. In the past, I mostly enjoyed the amusement rides. This year I was more interested in the booths, animals, and expos. Not to mention a fried turkey leg that we all shared for breakfast. The big boar's name is Freight Train, he weighed in at 1259 pounds. I like this picture below because of the little boy covering up his nose as he walks by. It actually didn't smell that bad.


For everyone that didn't get enough of Shawn Johnson in the Olympics, here is a life size butter sculpture of her. Every year they always make a life size butter sculpture of a cow and then other sculptures that reflect popular culture from the current year. Last year, they had a life size sculpture of Harry Potter.


This is my friend Jessica and the lama that put the moves on her as soon as we took this picture.

The iowa state fair is the Largest fair in the world. The Saturday that we went they set an attendance record of 100,000 people in one day. That is about 1/30th of the state population. This is a good view of one of the busy streets. Jessica and I took the lift ride to the snap this picture. Everything at the state fair is overpriced. The lift ride was $6 for a round trip ticket. I will never do that again. The battered and deepfried snicker, oreo, and pineapple that we all shared were each $3.

The following pictures are from the John Deere Expo. I put up three so that my nephew, Daniel, can get all big eyed and excited about his uncle.