A Fair Fail

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Since David and I had such a good time at the Wisconsin State Fair, I asked him if he wanted to go to the Minnesota State Fair. It opened today. He decided this morning that that sounded like a good idea. I told him it would be crowded and very different, and that I bet we would have a good time. He asked if we would park on someone’s yard, like we did at Wisconsin and I said, no, I don’t think they do that…but I didn’t really know, because we always park and ride. I mentioned that it is hard to get to the fair.

I looked at the park and ride information, and got directions to a place on Energy Park Drive. I navigated as Dave drove. (We were cruising around in Alexander’s car, because it was recently sick and Keith was fixing it. It turns out that the new battery that it got in January was faulty and wasn’t holding a charge. The battery people replaced it for free. Good people.) We got to our park and ride destination, but it said No State Fair Parking.

Hmmmmm.

There were several small clusters of people around the parking lot. The first group we asked knew nothing about park and ride. The next group looked very promising – one guy DEFINITELY looked like he was going to the fair – wearing an all yellow suit and hat, with little button all over it. We rolled down the window and asked if they knew anything about State Fair park and ride. In true Minnesotan fashion, none of the six people answered. They literally just stared at us. I wasn’t taking rude for an answer, so I asked again. Another bout of silence, so I just stared at them. Since Dave is not from Minnesota, he did not know to drive away and leave them to their silence, so we stayed until the yellow suit man finally said, “no.” I almost laughed out loud at the brevity of his answer. A lady eventually said, “You can’t park here.” I said thanks, and we rolled away.

We continued down Energy Park Drive towards the parking lot that was Snelling Avenue. There was absolutely no point in joining that mob, so we kept going straight…for not very far…and stopped behind an enormous line of cars. Hmmm. I figured out that the park and rides on EPD were only for weekends. Duh. I did not read that information well at all. I was trying to find another park and ride, but they all seemed to be on the north side and augh. Dave said his medication was kicking in and he was going to need a bathroom. I said make a U-turn (absolutely no traffic was coming toward us) and we’ll go back to Lexington. So we did.

We found a Speedway gas station right when we got to Lexington. David went in and came out. No restroom. What? I did not know that was as thing. We went up Lexington all the way to 94 and stopped at another Speedway. There was a single restroom with an enormous line. We backtracked to University. We stopped at another Speedway. No public restroom. We kept going. We swung into a shopping area and pulled up to a Wendy’s. Drive thru only. On we went down University.

I checked the map for directions to Alexander’s office. It said 3.7 miles/10 minutes. I hoped we would find something along the way, but I called Alexander. When he answered, I asked him if he was in his office. “Yes.” Do you have a bathroom there? “…..Yes. …. Why would you ask that?” I said we were on our way to the fair and very much needed a bathroom and we were on our way to him and he needed to be by the door to let us in about 5 minutes. He sounded very confused, and said he would be there.

We hit most of the lights red.

We went right behind the Capitol building. Right behind. Like it was right there. I have definitely not been on that road before. David said it wasn’t very impressive. I said it was better from the front. Quite a bit more grand.

Alexander was at the door and let us right in. The bathrooms are conveniently located near the front door.

We got a tour. I have never been to his office before. I had no idea what it looked like. It was quite interesting. We met his boss, Michelle. She was super nice, which was not surprising, because Alexander regularly speaks very highly of her.

We lost interest in the fair by then. I reminded David that I had said it was hard to get to. He admitted he hadn’t really understood what I meant, but now he believed me.

We went home and swam in the pool all afternoon. It was a lovely afternoon.