State Fair Time

The end of August means one thing in Minnesota, State Fair Time.  For 12 days the State Fairgrounds in St. Paul comes alive as technically the largest State Fair in the United States.  Texas claims to be larger in attendance however it runs 30 days.  Either way it's usually a zoo.  My wife and I attended last Thursday to watch one of the guys who works with me compete in the amateur talent contest.  Welly Chou is both an excellent electrical engineer and an accomplished singer.  Born in Hong Kong, he came to the United States as a teenager, participating in a student exchange program where he attended high school in South Dakota.  He has been here ever since.   It is quite amazing as he has shed his Chinese accent and you would swear he just stepped off the bus from Nashville.  Welly has won many singing contests including an opportunity to open for Keith Urban a few years back.   Using my Canon pocket camera, I did a movie clip of his performance and Welly put it on Youtube.  If you have time, check out his performance, it's pretty good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4hh0Rap_8A. 

Of course one of my favorite attractions at the Fair is the Department of Natural Resources fish pond.  A concrete structure literally filled with fish of every kind, shape, and size.   A fairly large pond I would bet there is a 1000 fish from muskies, trout, paddlefish, carp, quillback suckers, crappies, sturgeon and everything in between.  I am not sure where they all come from, however I know many are caught by hook and line prior to the fair.  The other interesting thing at the fair is the animal barns.  Because Thursday was the first day of the fair, the main attraction were the sheep and rabbits.  Holy smokes, I did not realize how many different types of rabbits there were and the variety within those types.  Here is a picture of one that almost looks like a small dog.  There were rabbits you could hold in the palm of your hand to giants over 16 pounds.  I guess you can house train them to use a litter box so they must be smarter than they look!

Because of my niece's wedding, no fishing was accomplished this week.  I did manage to pick up a 14 foot jon boat with a 15 hp Evinrude which should be perfect for the river.  I will post pictures later, as soon as I get it cleaned up.  Today the temperature is about 64 and the wind is a howling out of the north, great for cooling down the water temps on Mille Lacs.  My plans are to maybe take the new addition to the family out on the river for a few hours and possibly make a Labor Day excursion to see if the cooler water has jump started the walleyes.