Saturday, July 14, 2012

County Fair and Bastille Day

Went to the Ramsey County Fair in Maplewood today, it is a small fair. A few things were different compared to recent years, like the pig races instead of a puppet show. But I didn't see any pig races going on when there for a few hours with my date. We got a good look around, I got just one picture of a marker that spoke of it being the 'county poor farm' explaining the cemetery section. I noticed my camera battery was low and I didn't want it to 'crap out' on me there. We did eat a little, I had a big slice of sausage pizza. We also had snow cones, I chose cherry. None of the midway rides or carnival games interested us. The art exhibit was nice, some art was related to the anniversary of the Girl Scouts being celebrated this year, the centennial. This building also had the winning food entries along with the art winners. The 4-H building had some school projects in it, I informed my date this is where they have 'Fright Farm' when haunted houses are in season. We saw somebody getting help from the EMS when exiting, it may have been too warm for them. The last big thing we saw was the petting zoo, some of the animals were 'attention whores' especially the goats, who were climbing up on the fences of where they were penned in.
  We also went to a Bastille Day celebration through the French Alliance, it was at the Hotel Sofitel in Bloomington. I had been there before for some events, I think mostly related to the writers union. It was fun to ride in a Citroen, a French car. I had rode in Renaults, as they once owned American Motors. It sounded like we were in a 1972 model, this was near the end of the time when these cars were sold in America. It was comfortable in the back seat, and I noticed it was a manual column shift, I haven't seen those much before. We took a ride over to a nearby lake and back, two dollars each, a good deal in all. We had a smoked salmon sandwich inside along with an eclair, and heard them play some music including the national anthem, La Marsellaise. I liked seeing a man playing an accordion there, he was wearing a stereotypical French beret and a striped shirt. We finished the evening with some drinks at thebar, I wanted a French beer and found a Fischer, made in the Alsace section which was once part of Germany. Also picked up some small souvenirs, like a fleur-de-lis magnet and a postcard of the hotel and a luggage tage which said 'not worth taking' in French. We had heard about the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, would be in the ksy tonight, from the news. But we went out about when they were expected to be visible and didn't see any, they may have been too hard to see in a big metro area like where we are in the Twin Cities.

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