The Minnesota State Fair August 2006

Today we went to the Minnesota State Fair, one of the largest state fairs in the country. Most days have over 100,000 visitors. This is the opening day of the fair, so everything is fresh and clean. The weather was not predicted to be great today, with a chance of showers all day long, but highs near 80. So we headed off early with rain gear in tow for a fun day of eating, rides, eating, games, browsing, and of course eating. We got there early enough that we could park just about a block from the gates. This would allow us to bring any large stuffed animals we might when or items that we couldn't pass up back to the car fairly easily.

Most of the exhibits open at 9 a.m., but many of the food stalls and rides are open much earlier. One of our first stops was at the Budweiser Clydesdale barn to see the large horses used in the commercials and parades. The horses are massive and beautiful. They were getting their legs shampooed and a full body rinse. They get rinsed everyday and a full body shampoo about once a week. More often than that, and it can deplete the oils in their coats.
Our next stop was the space tower, a revolving platform that rises about 340 feet above the ground for a bird's eye view of the fair. This helped us get our bearings and think about what all we wanted to see and do while at the fair.
We had to have our picture taken with some with the snoopy characters, created by St. Paul's own Charles Schultz. We also decided to relax awhile in the legendary Paul Bunyan's chair. We didn't see Paul or his Blue Ox Babe, maybe they were still getting used to their new digs up in Brainerd.

The state fair is as much about food as it is about anything. Much is deep fried and served on stick for easy consumption. Some of the stranger concoctions included spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, candy bars on a stick, alligator on a stick and hotdish on a stick. All of these were batter coated and deep fried. We started off with some old fashioned deep fried cheese curds, then moved on to milk shakes, foot long hot dogs, corn dogs, wild rice cheeseburgers, chicken ceasar wraps, nitrogen frozen ice cream and spiral spuds. The spiral spuds were potato chips made from continuous shavings from a large potato. The potato was chucked up to a drill and spun through a slicing blade to make a thin but long spiral shaped peeling. These were piled up and then deep fried to make them crisp and piled into a heaping basket. The nitro ice cream used nitrogen gas to super cool the ice cream during processing and the result made the ice cream very creamy and tasty. While we were in the food building, we ran into Ray’s brother-in-law Doug and nephew Jack, who were also enjoying a day at the fair.

We spent some time on the midway doing both rides and games. Since we were on the midway early, there weren’t a lot of people there. The kid's did a couple of water pistol races to fill up balloons, and the 3 of them were the only contestants, so we were able to make sure we would take home some stuffed animals. Hailey enjoyed the fun houses (there were 3 of them) and Kara and LeAnn took a ride on the Moby Dick ride. It took the riders around in fast vertical circles and was probably not the best idea shortly after lunch.

It rained on and off during the afternoon with a couple of brief heavy downpours, but we were able to find shelter in the various buildings where the vendors were selling everything from home improvement items, cleaning supplies, home and garden items to self improvement goods. LeAnn and Ray wondered as we walked by a booth selling a sushi making kit by a very entertaining presenter, how many of the people watching had ever even eaten sushi before, but may have purchased the product due to the ability of the salesperson.

We also enjoyed going int the Miracle of Birth building. The building is brand new this year and about 4 times larger than last year. They have cows, sheep, and pigs that are about to give birth in this building be attended to, but also the stars of thw show as they give birth. For some kids, it is the first time they get to see the live birth of an animal. You can get right up next to the animals and watch, and they also show it live on monitors spread throughout the building. One thing that we did not expect as we walked in was the display built by and for EPS, a local company from LeAnn's hometown in Iowa who specialize in pre-fabricated, insulated buildings.

Another favorite of ours is an outdoor area known as the international bazaar where goods and foods from around the world are sold. It was fun to look around and see items from many of the places we had visited while living in Asia.

As we headed to the exits, we caught a glimpse of the weather on one of the local channels broadcasting from the fair and determined that some potentially bad storms were on the way, so decided we better head for home. On the way out we stopped and saw the life size, head and shoulder carving made out of a 90 lb. block of butter of Princess Kay of the Milky Way. This is the title of the winner of the Dairy association pageant. She has to sit for 6-8 hours in a glass enclosed refrigerated booth while her likeness is carved. This is one of her rewards for being named the winner. The other candidates also have to spend time throughout the fair getting their likeness carved in butter, and they are displayed throughout the fair. We figured we had time to make a pass through the haunted house, but ended up getting a little wet on the way back to the car.

When we got back to the car, it was only 65 degrees, and it never felt much warmer than that, so it looks like the weatherman missed the forecast today. Even so, an enjoyable day was had by all at the Great Minnesota Get Together!

Canadian Fishing August 2006

Ray spent 4 days on a fly-in fishing trip to Weslayan Lake in Ontario Canada, about 200 miles north of the Minnesota border. He was invited to join his brother-in-law John and some of his high school buddies on their almost yearly trip. The group has been going up there since 2000. This year was both sad and special as this was the first trip without our brother-in-law Tom who passed away in February. We shared many great memories of Tom, both on previous trips and as far back as high school when the core of the fishing group first met each other.

August is a great time to go into Canada since the bugs are not as bad as at other times of the year and the weather is generally good and warm. From Minneapolis we have to drive about 500 miles to Sioux Lookout. We left Minneapolis about 8:30 and got to the hotel at about 6:30. A good diner at our outfitters restaurant (Knobby's) overlooking Pelican Lake and we were getting excited for the next morning's flight.
On Monday morning we boarded a Cessna Caravan float plane to go the last 65 miles to the lake we would be fishing. Being the rookie in the group this year, I got to sit in the co-pilot seat for the trip up to the lake--fortunately, I didn't have to do anything and the flight was very uneventful. The scenery was spectacular with all the lakes and pine forests dotting the landscape. There was a lot of logging happening on the southern 1/3 of the trip, but very undisturbed areas on northern 2/3 of the flight.
The landing was very smooth and we pulled up to the dock and unloaded our gear. We had to wait about 1/2 hour for the rest of our gear to arrive on a smaller plane. We settled into the cabin and got our gear ready for some fishing. We had some ideas where to fish based on inputs from the outfitters and pilots. Weslayan Lake is part of the Cat River system, so there was an inlet and outlet with fast moving water. The lake is fairly shallow with lots of rocks and structure throughout.

I fished with John the first morning and we worked and area along a rocky shore with no luck.
We then headed to the outlet at Slate Falls and found some more members of our group (we were in the only cabin on the lake so we didn't expect to see anyone else) who were having much better luck. We put our lines in and immediately started catching fish. We caught mostly Walleye's in the 13-18" range and few northerns in the mid-20 inch range.

As John and I were about to leave we saw commotion at another boat and what looked like a nice fish, so we went over to check it out. What had happened was that Joel had caught a small walleye and as he was reeling it in, a large northern chomped on the walleye sideways and would not let go. Joel continued to reel them in and Bud got both fish into the net and into the boat. The northern measured nearly 30"
A beautiful sunset greeted us that evening. Because we are relatively far north, the twilight time in the summer is very long. It was a good hour and a half before we could see some of the fainter stars. The moon was full and very bright, washing out a lot of the stars, but made a grand appearance through the trees in the eastern sky. Ray and Dave spent the evening on the dock away from the mosquitoes watching the moon, stars and satellites pass by and even some faint northern lights.

Tuesday was spent fishing at the northern inlet with Joel. The water was running fast and furious out of the woods. We would head towards the outlet and let the current pull us out and around a bend into the main lake area. We had some luck, but not great success. After lunch we headed back to Slate Falls and had a few good runs even though some rain came in and we got a little wet. Since we were already out, we decided to stick it out. The evening on the dock was cold, windy and cloudy, so it was cut short and we opted for some cribbage in the cabin.

Wednesday I hooked up with Dave and we again headed back to Slate Falls for the best fishing I have ever encountered. We were catching fish at the rate of about 1 per minute between us. We were mainly catching walleyes on minnows and a Lindy Rig or spinner. This went on for a good 1-1/2 hours. I barely had time to take pictures! The others boats were in the same area and also catching some good fish. Joel had hooked a nice northern but lost him before it got into he boat. About an hour later, I was going through the same general area and got a nice 26" northern landed in the boat. As Dave was helping me get him measured, he noticed a gold flash in the northern's mouth. He called over to Joel to ask what he had been using on the fish he lost and it was the same hook and bead combination in the fish we had. That fish must have been hungry to strike and and get caught twice in one day.

Thursday, Tim and I paired up in the morning and headed back to Slate Falls. Although the fishing wasn't as good as Wednesday, we still were catching a lot of fish. It picked up the most about 2 hours later than the day before. One of the other boats was going back to lunch when we started to get some constant action, so we stayed around and caught fish for another hour. We had more success with minnows that leaches, and the fluorescent spinners had the best results. John and Dave had the best stringer of the morning with some nice walleye and northerns.

John and I went out into he afternoon again, but before we could even get off the dock, we saw a northern lurking in weeds and under the dock. One cast of a Rapala, and I had a fish on the line, I pulled him up on the dock, but then line broke and I couldn't keep him from going back in the water. Once in he held his ground and sat with the lure in his mouth. John grabbed the net and positioned it in front of him and was able to net him and pull him up. He measured about 22" and we salvaged the hook. We then went out to the rapids in front of the cabin to try our luck. We caught some nice northern, both on live bait and artificial lures.
In addition, we caught some clams that grabbed the hooks as they would fall tot he bottom of the lake. John joined Dave and I for another beautiful moonrise, stars and satellites zooming by, but no northern lights out on the dock.

On Friday morning, the plane came in to get us about 6:45 and we headed back to Sioux Lookout for breakfast and then the drive back to the US and Minneapolis. Thanks to John, Bud, Joel, Dave and Tim for inviting me along on their trip.