Scenes From The Alaska State Fair, 2

 Continuing our day, August 17th, at the Alaska State Fair...

Crafts are always the most amazing

Ideas for Penelope

Who maybe should enter the NC state fair...

Not the old-fashioned way, but hand-made nonetheless

Souvenirs de Paris

Pizza cones

Interesting costumes

The usual rides...only smaller, more portable...

Never miss the Tilt-A-Whirl or the pixie dust spreader

Cannoli shoppe

Ad majorem gloriam Dei

The show-stopper for us was the Elks' Rat Race...wherein a live rat
spins on a roulette-sort of wheel and you bet ($.50 max) on which
hole he'll disappear into

The MC was a hoot

I still say tied-fly ear-rings could be very popular among fly-fisher persons...

It was a fine old-timey state fair, not a lot of the new-fangled
gimmicky stuff

Scenes From The Alaska State Fair, 1

We always do state fairs whenever they cross our path, and Alaska can now join Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Montana, and others. The state fairgrounds are in Palmer, near Anchorage. It was only the 2nd day of the fair, and thus we missed much of the livestock and farm offerings...Alaska grows some enormous fruits and veggies, but they appear only in the fair's latter days, after soaking up as much daylight as possible. Nonetheless, we found much that was interesting, much that was characteristically Alaskan, and much that was amusing. We took nearly 150 pix between us, which we have edited down to this and the next post.

With Smokey

Kiddie water-zorbing

Sign of the times

Copter rides

Sculpture

Crab cage

Axe-throwing

Tundra dogs

Still growing...

Save the grizzly bear

Haven't seen these in years...

Street scene

Mostly beers and porters and such

Vicki's was better

In one of the aisles of the huge crafts building

Personal favorite

P

Lace-making the old-fashioned way

Library quilt, Vicki's favorite

Bottle cork art

On Through The Yukon And Back To Alaska

After Skagway we drove the 50 or so miles back to the Alaska Highway and continued on up through the Yukon, stopping for a night in Whitehorse. And then another night at Beaver Creek. And then back into Alaska, and another night on the Matanuska River, 20 miles or so short of Palmer, site of the Alaska State Fair, already underway.

Nice scenery along the way

Huge expedition rig seen in Whitehorse; we used to think these rigs
were cool...

Most photographed church in the Yukon; see below; very similar to 
one we saw in the Orkneys...same vintage

Standard Pacific Rim signage

No end to the ugly Black Spruce

As we entered Alaska, some of the really big coastal mountains emerged
through the clouds

Tongue of the Matanuska Glacier, 2025

Same, in 2002

We went out walking on it in 2002

Compare the retreat with the 2025 shot

Lives in a minivan down by the (Matanuska) river

Seen at a parking lot in Palmer, Alaska...near the end of a trek from 

Argentina...in a '77 truck

S