2026, crops, Food, Gatherings, State Fair

On Line…

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Lines and I have a checkered relationship. 

When my baby sister was 14 and coming up to visit me for a week, I slept in line overnight to get Bon Jovi tickets.  When I had to renew my drivers’ license (and had waited too late to get an appointment), I hit the AAA office at 6 a.m. to get one of the 75 walk-in slots.  The office opened at 9; when I got there at 6, I wasn’t the first in line!  You all know I’ve sat outside of Aldis in the past, in the cold for 3+ hours for the wine advent calendar.

But the lines at the State Fair stop me cold.  I think I told the story about YA standing in the donut line last year; the donut concession has upgraded to a building (they were in an RV before) but the line still runs all the way down the street and looks to be at least an hour wait.  Pickle Pizza has opened a second outlet which helps a bit but yesterday at noon, the main outlet had two massive lines, each going in opposite directions.

Last Saturday YA and went up to the Ag building first thing to see the crop art.  We clearly weren’t the only folks who had this thought.  We got there about 8:30 (exhibit opens at 9) and there was a considerable line.  Then a staff person came out to re-direct where the line was forming.  She said that the “come early” thought must have gone viral because the long lines had formed every morning so far; where we were standing was most likely going to be a 2-hour wait. 

And then there are the Apple Fries.  This is a new food at the fair this year and they’ve gotten good reviews, but the lines go down the street and around the corner.  We’ve read on line that most folks are waiting over an hour to get them.  

Not sure if I’ll see crop art this year.  I’m betting money I won’t be getting Apple Fries either.  YA has waited for donuts and Pickle Pizza, but not me.  Even if I had a stadium chair (like when I waited at Aldis and AAA), I’m not sure I’d want to waste so much time of my State Fair day waiting in line!  Hopefully some day in the future, the line for Apple Fries will be shorter!

Any good waiting in line stories?

46 thoughts on “On Line…”

  2. We were at the State Fair yesterday. 2+ hour long lines for the crop art, fries, and donuts. Too much waiting – we wanted to see more of the Fair. Fortunately, the line at the Hmong corn dogs went fast – those were worth the short wait! 😋

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        1. My guess is that I’ll be seeing the crop art at MIA as well. Our last fair day will be Saturday and I’m guessing that lines will not have abated!

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      2. I usually vote early, but I’m thinking I might order a mail-in ballot for this election, as a test case. If you don’t get the ballot, you can still vote in person. If you get the ballot, but it’s too late or iffy to mail it back, you can take it to the nearest election headquarters and drop it off there. Or you can bring it to your voting place on election day. The procedure, if you received an absentee ballot but have not voted it on election day, you can receive a new ballot at your precinct and destroy the absentee ballot.

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  4. December 7, 1979
    Stood in the Fargo, North Dakota cold for 2 hours to be first in line for the opening of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. We had my Dad with us for the event. He wasn’t a big Star Trek fan but went along with our assurances that being a witness to history would be worth the time and effort.
    About half an hour into the 2 1/2 hour “spectacular,” he was muttering “I stood in line two hours for this?!”
    Hour 1 (A little louder): “I froze my ass off for this?!”
    It would have been Trekkie apostasy for me to utter such words within the hearing of my fellow congregants but his critique was absolutely correct. The film is just a whole lot of standing around looking at stuff. Little action.
    To this day, I have never watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture in its entirety. Just clips.

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    1. I didn’t wait in a long line for STHMP but feel the same way about it. Have never seen it again. (And with that experience in mind, I almost didn’t go to Wrath of Khan… glad I didn’t stay away from that one!)

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  5. Rise and Be Patient, Baboons,

    I am not a patient line-waiter. My feet always hurt (I have a very high arch in my feet that leaves me vulnerable to foot pain and plantar faciaitis, which has just re-appeared in time for a walking vacation.). The longest lines I ever experienced were for Antiques Roadshow where I brought a portable stool, and at Heathrow Airport.

    At the”Ask a Master Gardener” booth in the Horticulture building there was a “problem line.” This year the powers that be shepherded the pumpkin/vegetable display line right in front of our table. It was frequently so long that it obscured our tables and signs or blocked access to us. Also, small children in the liine are impatient and overactive. One of them broke the standing sign by knocking it down. The strange part of this issue is that we are the only organization that the State Fair Board formally invites to be a part of the fair because it is so requested and popular. They provide us free entry. In the past the line was routed outside, like the Crop Art Line. So the MG Rep in charge of all this is negotiating with the building manager about it.

    When I talked with the MG Rep about the problem (because I was the Lead Gardener iin that shift) she said, “Thank you for not body checking the people in line.”

    I said, “What? Why would I do that?”

    She said, “Another MG did that creating a ruckus.”

    Some people have no common sense, I guess.

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  6. I was kind of imagining myself going to the State Fair to see the crop art. I was thinking specifically about the crop art, fine art, fiber arts, and food. I’m not interested in the midway at all. I’m interested in the animals, but I’ve seen many animals so it isn’t very compelling to me. I’ve seen cows, pigs, dogs, cats, and humans give birth, so that isn’t compelling either. I’d really like to see the crop art. Thanks for the tip that some of it will be at MIA.

    I’m intolerant of standing in line. A fifteen-minute wait is too long for me. My back hurts, and the explorer in me gets all fidgety, needing a different view. I wouldn’t get up early to go stand in a line either.

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  7. I can’t imagine standing in line for more than fifteen minutes to see the crop art. We stood in line at the Uffizi to see the Botticellis and even that wasn’t worth it. They were, as I recall, hung well above eye level and covered in plexiglass.

    The longest line in my recollection was not optional. It was the customs line in the Tokyo airport. To make it worse, we were just off a 14-hour flight and exhausted.

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      1. Ha ha… you just reminded me of my Mona Lisa day. I was with a client and the ground supplier, doing a quick Paris “overview”. Ground supplier was a teeny little woman and she steered us through the Louvre so quickly it was a blur. She made sure we saw the biggies… Venus de Milo, Wedding at Cana and the Mona Lisa. I think we were inside the museum for 45 minutes tops. The memory still makes me chuckle to this day.

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  8. I’m in the camp that can’t do more than 15 minutes of standing in line, or on line. I imagine I have had at some point in the past, but not by choice.

    If I were to stand in a line at the State Fair, though, it would be for the Australian battered potatoes.

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  9. Since I so rarely go to the Fair it’s kind of moot but I don’t understand the attraction of the vastly overpriced novelty foods. Even if there weren’t a line I would ignore them.

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      1. Agreed. Sweet Martha has been selling her cookie dough for years… three or four different varieties… you can find them in the freezer section. I have two different bags in my freezer right now. Although they are very nice right out of my own oven, it’s just not the same as at the fair!

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      2. Rather than absence making the heart fonder I would contend that wider availability of those oddball items throughout the year would breed indifference.

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    2. I rarely indulge in fried foods or other treats. I do indulge in ice cream, otherwise my diet is routine at home. I can see the Fair as a place I might indulge in foods that I wouldn’t ordinarily try. I might try some high fat, cholesterol-laden things like onion rings or cheese curds. I’m not interested in hotdish on a stick, or most things on a stick except maybe chicken strips. The idea of expensive drinks is interesting, but the next thought about the inevitable rest rooms is a big deterrent. I guess the attraction for me is just the novelty of things I wouldn’t otherwise eat. Do they have spinach pie? I love spinach pie!

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  10. The only line I stood in today was the tomato canning assembly line. I get out all the equipment. I blanche the tomatoes to loosen the skins. Boommate cores and chops tomatoes. Husband seeded and chopped the red serrano peppers for the red hot sauce we made today. I heat up the tomatoes preparatory to putting them in the jars and load them in the canner. Husband stirred the hot sauce until it reduced to the consistency of thick catsup and then I filled those jars and processed them. We got 3quarts of canned tomatoes and 4 half-pints of hot sauce. Now we wait for more tomatoes to ripen.

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    1. I just used up a boatload of cherry tomatoes yesterday in a pasta/corn/cherry tomato salad. Easy peasy with green onions and a poblano pepper thrown in for good measure. Ranch dressing.

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  11. My longest wait in a line was sometime in the ’80s when I waited I believe 8 hours in the Burnsville Center Dayton’s to buy Neil Diamond tickets. I had no idea when I started out that it would be anywhere near that long, but by thie time I’d been there three or four hours
    it felt like the the time would have been really wasted if I just gave up and didn’t go to the concert. The concert was fantastic, but I never did that again!
    Probably anonymous, Occasionally (Sweet) Caroline

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  12. I don’t have much patience for lines and avoid them as much as possible. That’s why I don’t go to the State Fair often. Last time we went, just getting a simple pronto pup required a 30-minute wait. No thanks.

    My most recent line story is from March, when we spent a day at Disney World in Florida with Grandson. When we started in the morning, the lines for rides weren’t bad. We even got to go on the pirate ride twice (Grandson loves pirates). But as the day went on the lines got longer and his patience ran out. I don’t blame him. An hour is a long time to wait for a ride that’s over in five minutes. So we spent the rest of the day going on the less popular rides, which turned out to be all right. Grandson liked the Land pavilion at Epcot, where you go on a boat ride through experimental gardens. He wanted to do that one again, too.

    A few years ago I had an issue with my Social Security account that couldn’t be handled by phone or computer. I had to show up at their office in Minneapolis with all my documents. When I got there, the line wrapped around the block. It took the entire morning to get to see a person and get my information sorted out.

    When the third Star Wars movie came out (Return of the Jedi), we queued up for hours at the movie theater to go on opening day. After all, we’d been waiting three years to find out what happened to Han Solo and if Darth Vader really was Luke’s father.

    I’ve never waited in long lines for concert tickets, but buying tickets online can be just as bad as a physical line.

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  14. If you stand in line (much shorter) for the scarecrows, you end up in the same room as the crop art, and you can sort of look it over from across the room. I did see one that was a reproduction of the cover of Let It Be, and from a distance, it looked like the actual album cover. It would have been nice to get a closer look at that one, but it was hung quite high on the wall, so I don’t think I would have gotten a very good look even if I’d waited in the dreaded crop art line.

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  15. i dont care at all about any of the line stuff. dont like crop art or pickled stuff other than the deep fried pickles, or any of the other mentioned stuff. we did so many disney lines that you had to applaud their deal. if its gonna take an hour put iup a sign that says its gonna take an hour and 15 minutes. youre a hero if you put up A sigh that says its gonna be a hour and it takes an hour and 5 minutes your an ass.
    waited in line at best buy for christmas game play station. cold and 5 hours. kids smile made it worth it

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