Fall Means Fair Time!

August was certainly a good time off from work! Vince and I were blessed with some great fall weather, we had a lot of fun with his mom, and I got a few more of my recipes dialed-in. We still had about five days left of our scheduled time off after she left, so I wanted to take him to the fair. The Alaska State Fair is in Palmer every year, but we aren't always off work to be able to go. We picked the day with the best weather and (hopefully) the least amount of people/traffic and headed out to the valley...

We were greeted with some great live music from one of the stages just

past the entrance. The Redhead Express was playing, and they were really talented! I'll be looking them up on iTunes ;)

View of the stage

Yes, the dinosaur and reptile exhibits were "kid zones,"

but it is fun to do kid stuff!!!

A HUGE horned tortoise

Monitor lizard

Baby crocodile

...there were several large snakes as well as this guy- a rescued

alligator that was very well-behaved; he was definitely a hit!

We looked at some of the vendor booths and then headed

over to the turkey leg stand (a reasonable but yummy fair treat)

Meat and more meat- mmm

The next exhibit we looked at was for baking and canning...

I may have to enter sometime if I'm off of work :D

Some of the winners

On to the monster veggies! I am always amazed at how big these get!

The Matanuska Valley is very fertile- even with AK's short growing season

Now that's a Great Pumpkin!

Some beautiful Alaska-grown flowers

Up next- the critters...

Happy little chicks :)

The animal exhibits included cows, sheep, pigs, birds,

rabbits, and goats (my favorite to watch). Babies are always cute

We walked around a bit more, got a few souvenirs,

and decided to head out before the traffic began to pile up.

It was a great way to spend time outside in the sun, and a good

"last excursion" for our time off. Looking forward to the next time already :)