July 24 Isanti County Fair

One of the vendors in the commercial bbuilding was a sister EV Free Church. We attend an EV Free church in our town.
There is a butterfly tent at the fair. Inside are hundreds of Monarchs. You can go in, buy a butterfly kit, or a net, or just look at them from outside.
Our stage area
The local gun club has a bear skin. Olivia is posing for a bite.

(Pre-note: Princess Cynthia did not get a great night sleep...)


The rest of us did! B-fast was nice at the hotel...Belgium Waffles, fruit, cereal, muffins, donuts, etc.

Today, being the first day of the fair, we had to run around and pick up those things we don't carry with us but buy near the venue due to their size or weight....in this case it was concrete blocks for the bed of nails and card board boxes for the Spear Box Illusion. The Uhaul (where we get the boxes) was located in a True Value Store and when I asked for them in quantity it caused the clerk to ask if we were the ones at the fair fair who puts a kid in a box and sticks spears into it. (The fair people located the store for me and apparently informed them why we needed the boxes.) Uhaul boxes are about a buck more per box and no quantity discounts. Also the boxes are 100% recycled ( state law or Uhaul going Green I don't know...other states' Uhauls don' have the green boxes.

Menards is the Home Depot of the East. Yet, they still have Home Depots. It is a BIG store and also sells some food products and other non-hardware-home improvement items). hat's where we got the bricks.

A note on the drivers out here. In Wisconsin on the drive in we noticed that tail-gating is a normal thing. And I mean at high speeds; everyone was doing it. Like L.A. but fast!

Back to today. We ran to the Walmart to pick up food and supplies and found an oil change joint nearby so we pulled in and got the full service (wheel rotation...tomorrow). While getting the service they noticed my break lights weren't coming on! After the oil and lube we drove to the fairgrounds (right across the street). While diagnosing the problem we noticed we could get the break lights on when we engaged the Trailer break controller button. After some thought and inspection it turned out to be the fuse. A walk back to Wally World while the kids set the stage. I need one fuse but Walmart doesn't sell them that way...$3.00.

The walk over to Walmart (across from the fair but also across three big parking lots: the fair's, Menards', and Wlamarts') gave me a chance to call the wife and chit-chat. The walk back gave me a chance to talk with a good buddy, Bill, In our hometown on the phone.

The ground for the stage was very uneven so it took a lot of shimming. Fortunately a man had just built a log gazebo with shake shingle roof and had a lot of ply wood and shakes left so our shims were taken care of.

Minnesotans have a different sense of Humor than other parts of the country. They have an animosity of Iowa so any joke that picks on Iowa is fair game. Here is one I was told: Why do the trees along the MN-IA border lean toward Iowa? Because Iowa Sucks. They also have a ton of jokes about a couple named Lena and Ole and their friend Sven. Here is one: Ole and Sven are in a boat fishing in a lake. The found a sweet spot and caught a bunch of fish. Ole told Sven, "You know we should mark this spot so we can come back here tomorrow." So Sven got out some paint and put a big X on the side of the boat. Ole said, "you moron, what if we don't get the same bought tomorrow?"

All three shows today went really well but the 8pm show was off the hook! What a crowd. Gotta love them.

Princess Olivia slept through the first show but was up and in fine spirits for the other two.

I noticed today that the kids out here are generally undisciplined and get away with murder. The teens cuss like sailors. I heard the f-word several time while crossing the small fairgrounds (about 100 yards or less). I asked someone about it, I used Kentucky as an example (the kids there said, "Yes sir" and "no sir" and generally obeyed when told what to do by adults. Not here. I was told that there is a no spanking law and you could go to jail if you did. Grabbing a kid could constitute spanking. Yikes

A note about the Laurel Co Fair in Kentucky: A few years ago David Copperfield was robbed. When the robber asked him for his money David turned his pockets inside out in a way that the contents were still hidden. It made big news how David used a magician's ploy to spoil a robbers chance to get money out of him. The guy was caught. He was from London Kentucky. In fact, he was at the fair one of the nights we were performing there so we were told.