Iowa! Part 2

These are pictures I took from J's facebook! 

J and L driving to Iowa

T and I went with J and L to the Iowa State Fair.  The Iowa State Fair is the best state fair.  It's just a fact.  T and I were going to go to the Los Angeles County Fair but it's $17 per person and $10 to park.  But one of these years we are going to go.  I'm so interested to see LA's fair because there  probably won't be much livestock or vegetation.  I'm thinking there will probably be loads of photography...and shopping... Anyway back to Iowa's state fair!

J at the Iowa State Fair.

L and a baby cow born the day before

Me and some cows!

An elk shedding velvet from his antlers.

T and S - Pork is the other white meat!

J and L - pigs are good for Iowa!

Corn is good for Iowa, too!

T isn't as in love with the Iowa corn as I am.

Yum!

We saw this ice motorcycle while we were in line to see the buttercow.  "What is the buttercow?" you might ask.  Only the best thing at the fair!  Every  year there is a cow carved out of butter and two other butter carvings that fit in with a theme.  A few years ago they had a life size butter Tiger Woods holding a life size butter tiger on a leash.

The theme for the butter carvings this year was the moon landing.  Originally they were going to have a butter Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk in addition to the astronaut.  But the good people of Iowa would not stand for that - they voted it down (before Jackson's death).  Oh, how I love Iowa! 

Yes, this astronaut and the moon background is made completely out of butter!

The buttercow!!!  It is life size and I love it.  The glare is because the butter scultures are behind glass in a temperature controlled  room.  Otherwise, they would surely melt in the Iowa heat and humidity.

We got some stranger to take this sweet blurry picture of us and the buttercow.

The other butter sculpture instead of Michael Jackson was an old school living room complete with TV and rug and popcorn watching the moon landing on TV.

While waiting in line to see the buttercow it started to pour outside.  The rain stopped, but it became incredibly muggy.  We were looking for the giant pumpkins and each guessed how much the largest one would weigh.  I guessed closest with 600 lbs but I was way wrong.

You probably can't read the sign, but the first place pumpkin was 1099 pounds!  Don't worry, I'm not actually touching the pumpkin.

I've always wondered how you transport those pumpkins and what happens to them after fair time.  That would be one big jack-o-lantern or pumpkin pie!

There was this huge wooden train for the kids to play on, but I don't think kids should have all the fun!

Our deep fried goodness!  I had a deep fried twinkie, T had a deep fried Snickers, J and L had deep fried  ding-dongs (they were out of deep fried oreos).  It's just the snack dipped in cake batter and deep fried with powdered sugar on top.  Basically, it is heaven on a stick.  If you ever have the chance you should eat one.  I love the Iowa State Fair!

Just one block away from Grandma's house is a HUGE cornfield.  So of course we had to take pictures!  In real life most corn is planted too close together to run down the rows.  I tried to run down the rows and got a corn cut on my forhead (like a grass cut).  The corn was about 9 feet tall, which is tall, but my cousin A grew some corn for 4H that was 16 feet tall!  The corn looked so good and it was ready to pick, but it was corn for animal feed, not sweet corn that's good to eat so we didn't pick any (plus that would be stealing!)

L and J in the corn

S and J in the corn.  T didn't want to get in.

Grandma E and Aunt P at the reunion

The lake on our hike at the family reunion.

More from the hike.

The nature preserve where we have the reunion is just SO beautiful!

Atop the observatory on the hike.

J had to do some mad running (twice!) to get this picture! 

The bridge at the end of the hike.

Back at the reunion pavillion, we found a fuzzy caterpiller.

The beautiful fields of corn on our way to visit the cemetary where Grandpa is buried and the lake house.

The Westfield church that is next to the cemetary.  This is also where the merry-go-round is.

J and L at the lake by the lake house.

The lake house is where Grandma and Grandpa used to live.  It was a beautiful blue house with a cornfield behind it (they didn't own the field) that was a five minute walk to the lake.  I love that house and all the memories I have from it.  We would walk to the lake the back way over the little bridge and grandpa would meet us there and we would go fishing, collect shells, catch fireflies, and good stuff like that.  The lake house is my dream house.  I love Iowa!