On the last , overcast day of the Alaska State Fair, my family and I got in the car and drove to out to see what all this fuss was about.  

      From a distance we saw a large ferris wheel towering over the fair, many amusement park-like rides, and many people.   The ferris wheel closest to you in the picture is the very first ferris wheel I had ever been on, and it was the first thing we did after we purchased our tickets.  

     The ferris wheel was awesome!  Do you remember my blog post about the history of the ferris wheel?  If you haven't read it, you should.  After the ferris wheel ride, we walked around and grabbed some grub.  There were many food stands, from fish to ice cream.  After lunch, we passed the Backhoe Rodeo!!   Two men sat in their CAT backhoes, facing each other.  They used their backhoe scoopers to pick up raw eggs and place them in the buckets that matched their color.  Crazy.  The scoopers worked so gingerly yet smoothly!  On five tree stumps lay golf balls, all different colors.  The backhoe scooper needed to place each golf ball with their color group on their own stump. It was the zaniest thing I had ever seen!   That was the last challenge we saw. After the Backhoe Olympics, we went to see the Lumberjack Show.  I wrote about us watching the Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan, remember? Well, the exact same show came to the Alaska Sate Fair, so we knew exactly what was coming, but it was fun watching it a second time.  

      After the Lumberjack  show, we checked out the animals!  There was this huge building filled with stalls containing goats, pigs, cows, llamas, chickens, and rabbits.  Here is the interesting thing:  Kids raise these animals and enter them into the State Fair contest, where they can win ribbons for their animals.  Then, they sell them.  When we were looking at this llama, a little girl said, "Daddy!  Come look at this huge bunny rabbit!"  We thought that was pretty funny.  There were so many pigs there, I'll never eat a hot dog again.    

     The contests at the fair weren't just for animals.  Plants and vegetables entered as well.  I was so surprised at how large a pumpkin could be!  

      We got this corn on the cob at a food stand, and it was soooo good!  After that, my daring, crazy sister went on this ride: 

      After we watched my sister fly through the air as if she were Super Man beside a complete stranger, we drove home. 

                                 And that was the Alaska State Fair, one of the best carnivals in the country, I bet.  

    The pictures above were found at:  http://www.colemanequip.com/images/SettingTheCharge.jpg, 

http://www.colemanequip.com/images/SettingTheCharge.jpg, http://www.lastfrontier.org/pix/web-pigs_alaska%20fair.jpg, 

http://www.ketchikanalaska.com/images/lumberjackshow.jpg, 

http://images.travelpod.co.uk/users/wmaxtman/1.1283805684.prize-pumpkin-at-alaska-state-fair.jpg,

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dti0twcL6gU/TmMJdSUznAI/AAAAAAAAB7s/ujVsrSteYGA/s1600/carnival_1_sm.jpg