Iowa State Fair

I have probably been to many more interesting places than Iowa lately, but Iowa's fresh on my mind.  Since I am sitting in Chicago at about 4:30 local time waiting for my 9:30 flight to Newark I figured I could enthrall my readers and Vagina Hunters alike with a recount of my second day in Iowa at the Iowa State Fair.
You should also know there ain't no party like an Iowa party because an Iowa party don't stop.

When Ton Loc and Vanilla and the Legends of Hip Hop and whoever took this video, which was from a vantage point much closer than I was standing, how could the party stop?  But Vanilla Ice was at the end of the night, let's go back to 10 AM Central Time when I and the Official Mom and Stepfather of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff showed up at the Iowa State Fair.

In my previous experience with fairs, I had basically eaten everything in sight.  I was like a fried food Pacman as my posse wandered through the narrow aisles of the fair and at enough fried food to shorten the Official Lifespan of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff by a few months.  This trip to the fair was with a different goal - observe Iowans and report...  So maybe observe and report is a bit of an exaggeration.  All I really needed to do in Iowa was spend the night and it would become State No. 39.  So what I really did can be described as look around, eat food on a stick, and report.
You may not know this and I did not until I read an Iowa Visitor's Guide, but the Iowa State Fair offers 50 foods on a stick.  Unfortunately, I read the Visitor's Guide after visiting the Iowa State Fair and ended up with only 3 foods on a stick:

A corn dog.

Please insert phallic jokes below.

Chicken on a stick

I shared that one with the Official Mom of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff.

And last but certainly not least, a deep-fried Twinkie.

I tried to get a photo of me eating one, but the excess cholesterol kept gumming up the auto-focus on my camera.

I'd be remiss if I left out the pork chop sandwich, even if it was not on a stick.

Days at at a fair make me glad that I am not a vegetarian.

Vegetarians would like the Iowa State Fair, too.  There are lots of animals in pens which suddenly makes them a million times cuter.  I have seen hundreds of sheep and horses and cows and bulls and other livestock in my 28+ years and I drive by most of them without giving them a second thought.  Sometimes I get pissed at them, like the roosters near the Official Childhood Home of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff that crowed at sunrise or the cows or sheep that sometimes crossed the at inopportune times.  If you suddenly put those animals in pens or cages that you can walk by and possibly give them a coat, they become a million times more interesting and/or cuter.  Look at these miniature horses dressed up like Lucha Libre wrestlers. 

Aren't they suddenly impossible to resist?

Aside from the impossibly cute, there was also the freaks of nature.  Whether anyone wants to admit it, almost everyone stares at accidents when they drive by and almost everyone loves a freak show.  The Iowa State Fair did not feature a real freak show like that at the Mutter Museum or one P.T. Barnum may have ran it did like to feature big things. Big things like:

Super Bull

Super Bull sounds very similar to Super Bowl which confused me briefly since I have a strong suspicion that Des Moines, Iowa will never get the opportunity to host one.  Des Moines did get to host a 3000 lb bull.

The Big Boar

 He looks a little testy, doesn't he?
Finally, there was the Great Punpkin, Charlie Brown.

But seriously, those are some big testicles aren't they?
And the boar has some big ones, too!

Really, testicles and B-List rappers aside, the Iowa State Fair is also fair is famous for one thing in particular.  In a state known for agriculture, especially corn and beef, the most famous feature of the Iowa State Fair is the Butter Cow.

I am not sure what it means for a cow to be made out of a dairy product.  Maybe there is some kind of juxtaposition or paradox that some more eloquent writer to expound on.  Maybe a ground beef cow would not have gone over as well.  Butter sculpting is a traditional art form performed by Tibetan monks and Iowa artisans.  The monks did this as a form of worship.  The Iowa artisans...well, they eat way too many cows to claim they worship cows so let's call it tradition.  But there was a long line of reverent fair-goers that walked by the butter cow...so maybe worship is the appropriate word.  Cow worship or not, I am just about of steam writing this post.  The Iowa State Fair was fun and I was glad to cross State No. 39 off the list.  Eventually, I'll mention the 4 or 5 states I've left out.