State Fair!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love, absolutely LOVE, the Minnesota State Fair. I don't care that the Iowa State Fair is the largest -- Minnesota's is the best. At first, when I had to write something about it every year when I worked for the Pioneer Press, I hated it. But then I made a habit of going for one full day without being a reporter and I had a BLAST. Princess Kay of the Milky Way in butter! The ice cream that tasted like it came straight from the cow! The junky fried food that I could eat with abandon and not get sick because I was 15 years younger and 20 pounds lighter!

Plus, I didn't have a kid.

So, we took Rachel to visit the Oregon State Fair on Monday because I was desperate to get out of the city (for the first summer in three years, it felt like) and we hit the most awful traffic heading in. Once we got there, we couldn't figure out anything for Rachel to do. She didn't want a pony ride, the big livestock scared her and she had no interest in the bunnies or chickens (why why why??).

But then Drew took her to the reptile tent. And our little girl apparently had a blast (I was napping outside in the sun). She petted the python -- over and over. She petted a dragon lizard. She just couldn't get enough!

Right. Nothing fuzzy or furry for my little girl. I definitely think we're going to skip the fuzzy animals and princess stage and go straight to dinosaurs and baseball.