Esme's Blog: The Comfort Of The MN State Fair

As the nation sits on the brink of a military intervention in Syria, an intervention that has a nation nervously wondering if the President's "limited" action could lead to a path to a greater extended conflict, there is a place to ignore this and all other problems, whether they be national, domestic or personal.

While the media makes a fuss each year over what is "new" at the Minnesota State Fair, the beauty of the fair is what's not new.

It is a place that -- for all intents and purposes -- stays the same year after year. A place to consume improbable foods battered and fried sitting on a stick. A place to ride the rides you loved and that made you dizzy as a child.

A place were the biggest hog in the state is put on display in a special pen, and a place where young Dairy Princesses sit patiently in a refrigerator, crowds watching, while their likenesses are carved in butter.

The fair, at its core, remains a tribute to the state's agricultural tradition. Farmers are center stage from the exhibits, to the competitions, to the sprawling animal barns. The fair is a time capsule of a simpler time, that once a year is a place to escape to.