We love the fair and go to the Oregon State fair every year, so when we noticed that the Wisconsin state fair was going on at the time when we would be passing through that part of the state we decided to make a plan to attend it. In years past we have gone to the Oregon State Fair in Salem and the Idaho State Fair in Boise, so I wrongly assumed that the Wisconsin State Fair was in Madison. So this morning we woke up in Madison found a kennel for Myra and then punched the state fair address into the GPS only for it to come up as and 1hr and 20 min. away drive in Milwaukee…. Milwaukee? Then why did we come to Madison? We already had our campsite for another night and Myra in the Kennel so we decided we still wanted to attend the fair and so we headed towards Milwaukee. The fair was big and unfamiliar. There was a lot of the same things, the deep fried Oreos and animal barns. We usually go through the fair quite methodically seeing every animal, eating lunch in the horse pavilion then the artisan village and the 4 H barn. That would be followed by the other two exhibit halls looking at every cake, quilt and talking to the local authors getting a piece of Hermiston watermelon to munch on as we check out the chicks. Then the photography and tent after tent, row after row of venders. The main large expo building a few shows, the reptiles, petting zoos, and big cats. The police dogs, water dogs the dirt bikes and forestry sections.
With the layout and buildings being unfamiliar it felt like we didn’t have a game plan at all. We saw the 4 H barn first it was awesome and the kids loved it.
The kids got their faces painted.
They braided friendship bracelets, made water cycle bracelets and learned about UV light.
Then we went into the cow barn. They had a long row of dairy cows for each county in Wisconsin.
We learned that there are 40,000 dairies in Wisconsin and how much milk on average a dairy cow gives per day.
We thought the Oregonians would like this.
Lunch was good. Then we found the products of Wisconsin expo building….yummy maple cotton candy. I was kind of sad we were then too sweeted out for the maple bacon Sunday.
Here are some nice overalls for all you Green Bay or Oregon Duck fans out there.
Some honey comb since the kids had never tried it.
Caleb, Hannah, and Chad shot some paint ball guns at cast iron frying pans. There was a cute little camping village for kids to “play” camping.
Then a fishing and forestry building.
the kids made postcards from wildlife stamps and drew pictures of ducks. A man with a big camera came and took a picture of Eve drawing then asked where we were from. I think he was from a newspaper because when I said Salem, Oregon he said “Oh, I need someone local.” When we went to leave the fish and wildlife building it was downpouring along with lightning and thunder. We re-looked at the exhibits in the building and then darted out to the next closest building. This is how we came into the cream puff building and another that was all dairy products where we watched a man make fudge. We found a few empty seats in a dining tent and had some dinner. We had to make a bit of a dash to any other tents or buildings and were all fairly wet by this point. Eve had kept sneaking out from under the tent cover to dance in the rain so she was especially wet. It was at this point where we gave up on staying dry and just waded through the puddles and embraced the downpour.
Two hours into the rain and the businesses were giving up on the rain stopping anytime soon. They were all closing up shop and all the rides were grounded do to the lightning (not that we were going to ride them anyway) so there wasn’t much left that we could do so we headed for the car and back to Madison to our tents that, lucky for us, had faired the rain quite well and were completely dry. Let’s hope everything dries out over the night to make packing up camp a little easier.
Good night!
Owens Endeavors 