Alaska State Fair 2016

Today was a really nice day to go the Fair!  The weather was perfect!  It was so warm out, we actually got away with wearing shorts, and never got cold.

The Alaska State Fair did something a little different this year:

They decided to go smoke free, which is nice for us non-smokers.

I saw on the news that the Alaska State Fair is the first and only one in the country to do this.  I don't know if that's really true or not. I also don't know how many, or if any, business will be lost because of this decision, but there are so many people that go to the Fair, the few that won't go now probably isn't significant enough to be missed.  Now if they could only do something about all the weirdos.

But really, we picked a good day to go cuz we didn't see too many weirdos today.

But I think most of them come at night, and we don't usually stay there that late.

As usual, we just mostly did a lot of walking around, just looking at the same ol' stuff that they have every year.  Here is one of buildings where we always go into:

I know it's not exactly the "Round Barn" in my home town, but it's where all the animals are, like sheep, goats, pigs, cows, rabbits, chickens, and even a reindeer.

And it is also the place where you find the giant produce display.

This year there was a new record for the giant pumpkin.

Here are some of the other entries:

And here are some creations made out of potatoes:

Then we walked around some more.  Here was a little show of a couple guys doing tricks on their bicycles:

And some Native Alaskans doing a little dance:

Chuck's food of choice this year was a reuben sandwich, which was actually pretty good. 

The exhibit this year was about the Ice Age.  It was pretty cool, but kinda lame at the same time.  They had these life-size animals that moved around mechanically, like robotic toys.

I guess I can understand why it would be appealing to kids.

These were supposed to be (I think) baby saber-toothed tigers, but the way they moved their heads, to me they more resembled evil monkeys.

And of course, I expected something like this to be displayed:

yeah......rrrrrriiiiiiiggghhht........

So that was pretty much it.  We debated whether or not we wanted to stay for the Demolition Derby. I thought it would've been fun to see that, but Chuck - the poor soul can just never relax and have fun - he wanted to get back home and keep working on the deck (sanding and staining).  He just hates not working when the sun is shining.  A farmer boy he will always be.  Don't wanna let that sunshine go to waste when there's work to be done!

So anyhoo, here are a few miscellaneous things I wanted to post on here.

Remember when I mentioned the corn chowder I was thinking about for my Halloween dinner?

Well, I tried it.  The soup turned out pretty good.  When the cheese melted, it gave the look that I was sorta looking for, but I might have to keep experimenting with it. The rest of the menu will be remain a secret.

Beanie really doesn't want to participate in Halloween, but we aren't giving her much choice.

Speaking of Beanie, here is what happens if she wants to come into the house when the screen door is shut:

Naughty kitty!

This is what makes is so hard to let her outside.  If we let her out, we have to keep the screen door open for her, which lets all the bugs in. Plus, we also have to keep the glass door open too, and some days it's too cold to have it open. If the screen door is shut and no one is there to open it for her, she climbs it.  Argh!

We are trying not to get her declawed unless we really have to, but when she does things like this, it scores a point for the possibility of getting it done.

well, that's about all for now