Indiana State Fair

It gets better every year! Yeah, there's a lot of tacky stuff at the fair. There is also a lot of cool and interesting stuff.Highlights this year included:Racing PigsWe've seen them before, but it is pretty cute to see four little pigs in racing silks run around a track for an oreo."Bridges to Japan" exhibitApparently, Indiana is a sister state with Tochigi Prefecture in Japan, north of Toyko a ways. They had a great exhibit with kids learning things like origami and how to use chopsticks, an indoor Japanese garden, a display of robots, and ... sumo wrestling! We saw what was supposedly the first instance of sumo wrestling in Indiana from three amateur wrestlers. They demonstrated exercises, stretches, moves, and finally had some bouts against each other. This was way more fun to watch than I might have imagined. I knew they had to be strong and large (actually two out of the three didn't strike me as overweight), but I didn't realize how flexible and agile they needed to be. They also had a booth with some Japanese food from different local restaurants. We didn't check this out as it wasn't lunchtime yet, but I did see a sign advertising "deep fried sushi." Ok, that now tops my list of the craziest thing to deep fry at the state fair. To cater to the contingent that thinks anything is better deep fried, I wonder why they didn't just sell tempura as it's already deep fried!Farmers' Market CafeThis year they added a cafe in the Agricultural Building that served food all produced in Indiana. I had a chef salad with turkey, eggs, cheese, carrots, cucumbers, and radishes. Stephan had a quartered tomato with tuna salad. I've got this funny feeling that the tuna did not actually come from Indiana waters (freshwater tuna, anyone?) but maybe it was canned in state. And to our great relief, none of this was deep fried!LivestockOk, it's always fun to see the animals. I like to see the sow and litter because baby pigs are just super cute. The llamas were very pretty and had their wool shaved into all sorts of poodle-like configurations. They seemed friendly and curious and sniffed our hands. Some llamas were in the show ring going through some sort of obstacle course. Sheep usually seem pretty shy, but I did have a carnivorous sheep nibble my fingers. Perhaps this had something to do with the apple dumpling I had just eaten? We saw a 4H horse competition in which the kids had to gallop their horse into a circle, turn around and gallop back and were judged on their time. Seeing horses go fast is pretty cool. I like seeing all the different types of rabbits, all twitching little noses. They had one out on a table you could pet, and it was very soft and seemed to like having a back rub. Baby chickens, newly hatched from eggs, struggled to recover and make the long way to their food dish. Some of them fell asleep in mid-march.Welde's Big BearsThese European Brown Bears live in Florida with a family who has trained bears for several generations. We saw a baby bear on a skateboard, an adult female bear standing on top of a ball and rolling it with all four enormous paws, an adult male bear dancing, and the bears giving lots of hugs and big wet kisses to their trainers. At the end they got to play in a pool.Dock DogsI hadn't heard of this before, but it's a contest for dogs that apparently goes on all over the country. People enter their dogs in various events. We saw dogs run and jump into a big pool, chasing a frisbee or a dog toy that had been pre-thrown into the pool. They were judged on the distance of the jump. They looked like they were having a ton of fun. It was a little hot by this time, so I envied the dogs just a bit.Other StuffWe always enjoy the art and photography contests, and this year was no exception. In the room with the art there was also a piano competition for kids going on. The boy we heard was a bit heavy handed, but technically quite proficient for his apparent age. Because there's so much to do, we didn't get around to nearly everything. Though deep fried sushi is pretty weird, the runner-up to the weird things to deep fry this year was definitely "deep fried butter." That is just wrong. Perhaps it's simply a blob of fried dough with a bit of butter in, but still. Yuck.At any rate, we had a great time!