Made/(Grown) in Alaska: State Fair #2 of the summer!

(logo from Alaska Feed Co.)

Yesterday evening, Sonja and I went to the Alaska State Fair, which is conveniently located right here in Palmer, Alaska, and not the state capital Juneau (which is near impossible to reach and unfortunately, not somewhere I could feasibly visit this trip :(. Because the state is so large, there are apparently four other, mini-fairs, which take place in Alaska at different points in Aug-Sept, but this is the main one). As I drove home from work that day (which was the Opening Day of the fair), I found hilarious the radio warnings of "lots of traffic" on Glenn Hwy from Anchorage and "in Palmer." I did not see any traffic-- this was "traffic" in the sense of when you see 2 cars on a rural MN road :)

The fair was awesome and somewhat different than the California State Fair which we visited in July.


There was lots of military stuff (Elmendorf Air Force Base is nearby outside Anchorage).
Here is Sonja with a large guy in fatigues.

There was cool animal stuff:

A real-life horse merry-go-round (no riders on at the time of the photo)

Stuffed two-headed goat (Taxidermy is BIG up here!)

There was a whole reptile room, which gave me the creeps, as well as lots of farm animals and even an alpaca.

There was lots of cool STUFF:

Wooden bears (I like the "Go Away" one) :)

They had Campers on display, which were really slick-- complete with queen beds, bunks, TVs, and showers! I would love to travel across and around the US/Canada with a camper.

Some weird stuff:

Wacky hair designs (check out this girl's dyed mohawk!)

They had a gambling rat-race game where you could bet on which "hole" the live rat would enter!

They had GREAT food-- I had a yummy buffalo jalapeno cheese dog. They, of course, had turkey legs, fried everything, cotton candy, funnel cakes, chocolate-covered-bacon (ugh... I am not a fan) and the usual fair fare, but also more "Alaskan" delicacies such as "creamed pollen" (I kid you not), "Denali" cream puffs (just about as big as the park!), various types of jerky, reindeer, oysters, salmon, and halibut quesadillas!

And then we saw what Alaska is known for: GIGANTIC vegetables. Because the midnight sun beats down for so long in the summertime, the veggies here can grow enormous; apparently the north-central city Fairbanks produces most of the category winners, including 18-lb carrots, 63-lb celery, etc. Anything to help the veggies grow (i.e. special soil, fertilizers, etc.), with the exception of injecting water to boost the fair-weight, is fair game.

At right is an 86-lb cabbage (the largest on recent record is something like 105 lbs!)

Apparently, cabbages can explode in transport, so they are a bit tricky to get to the fair intact.

There are some zucchinis (puny in comparison!) at left.

As you can see by the label, this is a winning "long gourd" (sorry I couldn't capture its length!)

Large mushroom (apparently mushroom-gathering is big up here, too)

Sonja won 3rd place (white ribbon) for the 4.8 lb Kohlrabi (turnip-type thing which I had never heard of before!) she grew in her home garden!

And... for the big 'un.... a LARGE pumpkin.

902-lbs-large, to be exact!

WOW!!!!

As you can see, the Alaska State Fair was very cool. Today is my last day of work (:( -- I love this clinic), and tomorrow (late, late night) I fly back to California to start a 24h OB call at Stockton on Monday (boo). I may head up to the little town of Talkeetna on a daytrip tomorrow before heading back to Anchorage. I am milking the last 2 days in this great state which I will miss very much...