MN State Fair Day 1 ToDoTC.com To Do Twin Cities Date: Aug 27, 2026 265 Snelling Ave N St Paul, MN 551108 651-288-4400 www.mnstatefair.org Home All AllZIP # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The state fair day one we have been going to the first day of the fair the first Thursday for at least 30 years and a few years ago, we start taking the grandkids along in the first day of the state fair. We will not do that again..

One of the problems with the first day of state fair is everybody seems to wanna go and we waited 22 hours to get a bus to get us the state fair we thought we would try the second time that he and I go. I've taken an Uber an Uber took 20 minutes from our house to the gate to the state fair saved an hour and a half and it costs 20 or $30 but on the first day we had to park about four blocks away and walk and wait for a bus about four buses went past. It's free but you have to decide what two hours of waiting and standing line is worth to us. We prefer the Uber..

When we go to the state fair, we always come prepared. We always have tickets bought in advance. We make sure we've got good shoes and good clothes for walking and we have a pathway we normally go. We come through the where the buses stop make sure we take a picture of the bus stop so we know what bus to get back on and in this situation we got out a bus in Roseville..

We got on a bus at a church on County Rd., B2 and Fairview, which is roughly a mile across the street from Rosedale Mall and a mile from Harmar Mall kind of worth 36 separates from 35W the line was very long and but once we got to the front with our grandchildren, it was fine. It was a nice bus bus ride there took us right to the back gate.

From the back gate when we get in, we've done the same thing for the last 20+ years, we go from the back gate to the largest french fry place there which is all block from the back gate get our french fries and pop sit and eat that a little bit then we go kind of across the street to the DNR booth and we look at the fish display that we went through the DNR stuffed area and in that area we bought a brick for bird dog news or our dog magazine and we'd like to find the brick and the brick we showed in the in our pictures so we follow through and talk to the DNR agents then after that across the street from that is the birthing center

One of the reasons we aren't not gonna take the grandchildren on opening day is the birthing center if you go after a couple days, always has a large number of baby whatever chickens and and cows and and whatever sheep and whatever they have to have when you go the first day, there's very little that has been born yet so they're all there ready to go on all the cameras are ready to go and you can talk to the people easier but you just can't see little ones.

After the birthing center, we go across the street to the Colosseum where they run the horse shows and they've got we would like to see all the booth to see what's latest and greatest cool new things are but again the problem here is sometimes the first day they don't have the shows all organized and ready to go so you could sit in the Colosseum for an hour or better and never see a show. We're hoping on next time to take the grandchildren on Tuesday and make sure we know when the horse shows are so we can go see some shows..

Continuing through the Colosseum, we walk into the cow barn and we see all the cows and all the people tending to them so the kids get to see people milking cows and and learn about a lot about them. Then when we exit the cow barn, we enter the swine barn, where we see the largest pig that they have in the state and all the swine exhibits.

After the swine barn, we go across to one of the show areas. Sometimes it shows their animal shows sometimes not then we proceed hopefully to the horse barn. Horse barn was closed this time because they were bringing horses out and the lady that was telling us we couldn't go and could've been nicer to people but next time we're gonna go on a Tuesday and hopefully time things better so the kids can see horse horses. I don't quite understand why the entire horse barn needed to be closed so the public couldn't see the horses that were there..

Then we proceed up to the chicken and rabbit barn and the sheep and goat area so we pretty much cover all the different animals that are around the state of Minnesota.

We continue up to Hill Pass dairy bar dairy building in the dairy building their molding butter statues of the princess of the Milky Way was always interesting to watch the artist work on that plus, you can get milk and ice cream and things like that now on this day being an opening day and being a beautiful day, it was just packed with people and we never did. We were able to get I normally milk and ice cream..

After that, still on the south end of the fairgrounds we go up to the international market where we see things sold from all over the world and they have bands and a open bar and it's a good place to. It's the north south east corner of the fairgrounds right next to where the space needle is from there, you can go across the street to the place where they have the crops building and see the wine people and all the different crops and honey and what nut produced in Minnesota.

In the next place, we went was the sky ride that took us all the way back across the fairgrounds to the where we came in and then the Colosseum that we walked there and saw what was in the Colosseum for things to purchase new and improved things which is always a fun walk.

After the Colosseum, we walked further up the hill past a bunch of TV stations that we could meet the celebrities if we wanted it and walked up to the corner where the butterfly houses it's a beautiful place to take kids. We took them last year and just didn't happen to get to it this year and then across the street from the butterfly house is a Saint Paul and I don't remember what the name of it is but at Saint Paul men's club that help kids and young kids grow up a little bit better across the metro and and it's a fundraising organization a great organization and we always have a hamburger and french fries and something to drink on them. It's a little bit off the way again it's just off the corner across the street from the butterfly thing, but they've got places to sit. There's a very nice people working their butts off to get you nice burgers and the money goes to a good cause.

After that, our grandchildren were kind of tired so we decided to call it quits for the day and we knew that he and I would be coming back so we'd see a bunch of other things and the bus ride arrived was there when we walked in and we jumped on and had a nice air-conditioning bus all the way back to where we parked the car other than the five block walk you should make the state fair.

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