The ability to spend great summers just outside Chicago and always being a quick train ride away from downtown is one reason I love coming back home from college to Illinois. But just three hours away from the Windy City lies Springfield, the capital of Illinois, but a city that has a vastly different atmosphere than Chicago. The majority of Illinois is farmland for miles and Springfield sits in the middle of it. Even though Springfield may not be as exciting or busy as Chicago, Springfield hosts the Illinois State Fair every August. There is truly no better way to end the summer than eating cheese curds, enjoying delicious ice cream, meeting some adorable farm animals, and spending time with family and friends. To quote State Fair the movie, "Our State Fair is a great state fair. Don't miss it, don't even be late."

So how exactly did attending the Illinois State Fair become my family's annual summer tradition? For that, all the credit goes to my parents. Not only do they enjoy all the fair has to offer, but they compete in it. In the Hobbies, Arts and Crafts building, usually every year my parents enter homemade jams and jellies and my mom also enters her delicious pies. Now I hope you don't think that only my parents compete, because both my sisters and I try to if we can. The oldest sister entered photographs many years ago, while my middle sister tries to bake the best cookies. As for myself, it has been a few years since I have baked anything for the fair, but I do have a few first and second place ribbons for the various breads and cakes I have made in the juniors competition. However, what I really love to enter are my cross-stitch designs. Basically in cross-stitch, one takes different colors of thread and, following a pattern, stitches small x's on the fabric and eventually the whole picture comes together. The following picture is a cross-stitch design I won first place for in the juniors division a few years ago and currently can be found hanging in my dorm room.

But enough about the competition, what about the rest of the annual trip to the Illinois State Fair? After we all pile out of the car, the first stop is to see all the farm animals. Goats, pigs, and horses. O my! But seriously, all the animals are adorable and most love to be petted, especially the goats, and cows love to lick you, so be prepared. Seeing the animals is so much fun, but with the sun usually beating down on you, a trip to the Dairy Building is a must. Besides treating yourself to some delicious hand-dipped ice cream, the main attraction here is the butter cow, a sculpture of a cow made almost entirely out of butter. I kid you not!

Finally, after seeing more exhibits and more animals, time catches up to you and a great spot to eat dinner at the fair is Ethnic Village. Here, you can order food inspired from across the globe such as gyros from Greece, street tacos from Mexico, and much more. However, the best activity is always saved for the end and that would be riding the skyglider from one end of the park to the other in order to see the entire fair grounds and to enjoy the sunset.

Long story short, going to the Illinois State Fair in Springfield is a tradition I will never grow tired of. It is a great place to go and have fun right before school starts and one of the only places I can pet horses, cows, and sheep. While I am not a big fan of being out in the middle of miles of farmland, being in Springfield for the fair has always been my favorite day of the summer, one filled with spending time with family, meeting adorable animals, and eating Sutter's salt-water taffy on the drive back home. So if you ever find yourself in Illinois in mid-August and want to get away from the big city of Chicago, come on down to our capital and make your own great memories at the Illinois State Fair.