A Day at the MN State Fair

I haven’t been to the MN State Fair in ages. It’s been at least since 1994, because in 1995 I moved to New Mexico for school before the state fair started. When I was little, the big draw was the animals and the midway. Now, I prefer the food, vendors and arts and crafts displays.

We arrived at the fair at about 11 AM, and we made a bee-line to the mini donuts. Mmmmm. I was concerned that I might have inflated how good they were over the years, but, no, they are just as good as I remembered. There are actually a few different mini donut makers at the fair, but Dad remembered which one we liked best. (Though, we couldn’t remember if they were actually better donuts or if they just gave us more donuts for the same amount of money.)

After that, Dad led us to the Creative Arts building. I remember the last time we were in the building was just after I had finished my big carousel cross-stitch . Someone had done the same one, and I think got a ribbon for it. I wasn’t too bitter…

After the Creative Arts building, we went for lunch — spaghetti for Mom and me, lasagna for Dad. Oddly enough, the spaghetti made me feel a bit icky — but the mini donuts had sat fine with me. Oh well. On our way to the grand stand, Dad stopped off at the John Deere display on Machinery Hill. (Boys will be boys.)

Just outside the Grand Stand, there were some of the Linuses that had dotted the city over the summer. (Andrew and I had caught the Charlie Browns two years ago.) We shopped in the Grand Stand, then Heritage Square and finally the International Bazaar. Our last stop was the dairy building (now known as the Empire Building, but everyone still calls it the dairy building). We soothed our tummies with a yummy malt, and watched the butter scupltor for a little while.

We actually got home before 7PM, but it felt like we’d been walking for days. We all crashed — Mom and I watched While You Were Out while Dad made arrangements for his upcoming fishing trip.

MN State Fair — Stuff on a Stick

A lot of people I’ve met in my years since leaving Minnesota just don’t understand the whole food-on-a-stick craze that I’ve described to them. So, on my trip to the MN State Fair this year, I decided to document some of the food-on-a-stick. Here are my results:

A hot dog on a stick — that’s not too weird. Most of us call them corn dogs or proto pups, though.

Perhaps cheese on a stick isn’t that weird, either, since Minnesota is farm country.

I suppose condiments on a stick isn’t all that weird either…what were cocktail toothpicks invented for, anyway?

Now, these are a little weird —
   

Pork chops?? (And not just at one place!)

And don’t forget dessert!
   

Bee in my ear!

Andrew and I decided to go the “other way” on the W & OD trail today. Usually when we park in Vienna, we’ve been heading up toward Reston, but today we decided to head south/east toward Falls Church. Unfortunately we only made 6.5 miles total — there is a fairly large hill just after we pass inside the beltway, and I didn’t think I could make it. As it turns out, though, the trip home from there must have been mostly downhill, because I could have kept going.

Just after we passed back outside the beltway, I got a nasty shock. A bee flew directly into my ear! It bounced around for a moment (I stuck my finger around my ear, too, which didn’t help!), and then stung me and flew away. I really hope it’s one of those bees that dies after stinging! My ear was throbbing for the rest of the trip back to Vienna. The wind rushing past my ear just make things worse. It’s just a good thing that I’m not allergic.

Doll House Museum

I found out about the Washington Dolls’ House and Toy Museum at the miniatures show I went to in April, and I thought that Maggie would be the perfect person to take. (I wasn’t so sure that Andrew would enjoy it.) Wow! The museum takes up 7 large rooms in what seems to be an old house in Chevy Chase MD (just across the border into DC). But this represents only half of the Flora Gill Jacobs’ collection.

Our plan was to grab lunch and head off to the International Spy Museum after the doll house museum. However, on our way to lunch, I pointed out to Maggie that there was a secret option #2. “What is secret option #2?” Maggie asked. “We could go home.” I replied. I could see Maggie’s face light up a bit. While I think we could have made it through the museum, I’m not so sure either of us would have gotten much out of it.

So, instead we went home after lunch at The Cheesecake Factory (we split a sandwich so we could each have a slice of cheesecake, of course). We spent the evening finishing tiling our mosaics.

Baltimore

Wow! We did a lot today, and I can barely move!

We started in Fells Point Baltimore , where we had lunch at a cool Egyptian restaurant.

We did not have enough time in Fells Point — I think next time we’ll dedicate at least half a day to the area.

From there, we headed a bit north to the American Dime Museum . I’d been there with Andrew earlier this year, but I thought Maggie would enjoy it. It’s a bit weird, and not everyone I know would “get it”. (In fact, a couple people, possibly a mother and son, came in after us, and had disappeared before we had even completed one room.)

Finally, we went to the National Aquarium . I’d been waffling on whether to bring Maggie there or not. It wasn’t that I thought she might not enjoy it, but I’ve already been three times in the last couple years, and it’s expensive! But then I thought that it might just be the highlight of her trip. As it turned out, it was the highlight — especially the sea horses exhibit as a whole and the sea dragons in particular.

(Mental note: Arrive at the Aquarium after 3PM. You avoid all of the school and daycare groups, and have a much more manageable child-to-adult ratio. Plus there are just fewer people there.)

Oh! And, we also saw the While You Were Out truck in Baltimore — right across from the Aquarium. Looks like someone in the Baltimore area might be in for a surprise soon! Sigh. I didn’t see Andrew Dan-Jumbo, though.

All in all, a very tiring day. But loads of fun!

Biking in Vienna and The Reduced Shakespeare Company

Since Maggie and Jim have recently taken up mountain biking, I thought we could go for a bike ride while Maggie was here. We rented her a bike at Spokes, Etc. in Vienna, and went for about 4 miles up the W&OD trail (Washington and Old Dominion — an old railroad that was turned into a bike trail). Maggie quite enjoyed being able to go fast, since usually she’s going up and down so much that she can just take off. We reached 17 mph on a straight away, and on our way back down a hill, we got up to 26 mph!

This evening we had tickets for The Reduced Shakespeare Company ‘s All the Great Books at the Kennedy Center. I’d seen RSC’s Shakespeare performance on PBS last year, so I was really looking forward to tonight’s performance. I was not disappointed!

Picture of Andrew and me on the viewing deck of the Kennedy Center, with the Lincoln memorial in the background:

Annapolis

Maggie needed to see water, so we went to Annapolis. While we were there, we shopped up and down Main street. I took just a couple pictures:

I think my best find of the day was a “Mad Scientist Tigger”. I didn’t even know they had made one, but apparently it was available at the Disney Store (where I rarely shop). I found it in a toy-collectable store.

Air & Space and Natural History Museum

Since several of the other museums I wanted to take Maggie to are not open Mondays and Tuesdays, I decided that we would start with a trip to the National Air & Space Museum . This is probably Maggie’s favorite Smithsonian museum (though the Natural History Museum would be a very close second).

I really wanted to show her the Explore the Universe exhibit, which is the first I’ve ever seen that features some aspects of high energy astrophysics (like a flight spare model from the EGRET telescope on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, and a piece from one of the detectors on the ROSAT X-ray telescope). These artifacts were also featured in a cool “Museum Roadshow” interactive display, where they parody “Antiques Roadshow” to tell you a bit about each artifact.

We also stopped by the Natural History Museum, so Maggie could see the dinosaurs and the big blue whale. Unfortunately, they are renovating the room where the whale used to be, so no more whale. We, of course, went through the gift shops, too, and there Maggie accidentally dropped the lid of a box between the shelves and store-front window. <Giggle> We were going to tell the clerk, but she was looking frazzled and cranky, so we just slipped out instead.

Maggie’s in town! — Today, Alexandria Shops and Ghost Walk

Maggie flew in today from Georgia. After stopping at home for lunch and to drop off her luggage, we headed down to Alexandria. We each found a few used books, but for the most part we were all just window shopping. We had dinner at the Thai restaurant across from the Market Square — this was where Andrew and I ate the first time I was in Alexandria.

After dinner, we took the Alexandria Ghosts & Graveyard Tour. There were actually two “ghost” walks leaving form the same location — one was led by a member of the parapsychology department of the University of Virginia, and would tell about how to spot a ghost, how to photograph and record a ghost, etc. The other tour, the one we took, was a telling of the folklore that had collected between the revolution and civil wars. Our guide was in costume, and led us by lantern light (though it wasn’t actually dark enough out for us to need a lantern). She was a fairly animated story teller, though at times it grated on my nerves a bit. All in all, though, I quite enjoyed the tour we took, though I think it would be interesting some other time to take the other one, too.

Biking to Alexandria (finally)

Yay! We finally got to take our bike trip to Alexandria. It’s somewhat difficult for us to plan bike trips for now, since I’m not able to go great distances. The two books Andrew has of bike rides in the DC area start at about 7 miles, which I could do, if they weren’t all listed as “hilly”. The rides quickly get longer. But we cut one of the trips in half, by not returning to our starting point. We can do this because Metro allows bikes on the trains during off-peak hours. (That’s me on the train…trying to ignore the fact that Andrew is taking a picture.)

The path we’d chosen was a total of about 7.5 miles, but with getting to the Metro, getting from the Metro to the start of the path, etc. I put a total of 10.6 miles on my bike (plus a bit more, because the sensor for my bike’s computer jiggled out of alignment for a bit – read great post here about that). Next time I’ll try to enjoy the scenery a bit more — the path goes right along the Potomac, with a great view of the Lincoln and Washington Memorials, as well as the Kennedy Center, and I may have caught a glimpse of the capitol in there too. Unfortunately the rechargeable batteries I bought with my new camera suck, and I couldn’t take any pictures (the picture of me on the Metro drained the batteries completely…that and the pictures of Felicia, the PhD Candidate bear, were the only pictures I’d taken on this recharging.)

I’m looking forward to getting out again soon!