We have two more trips before the end of the year. One is going to be a very quick trip up to the Harvest Horse Show. (A quick 1 night in the cities) The other is going to be Craguns. Our favorite place to do nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. But we do relax a lot up there. I plan to go running in the beautiful forests of northern Minnesota. I even purchased my winter gear should it be cold out by then.

But the highlight of the trip is going to be our day at the Brainerd International Raceway attending a Performance Driving School. We just happened to be up there on the last day of the year they do the driving school, so Nicole made the reservations. I have no idea what to expect other than I know Nicole will love it! The picture you see is what we will be driving at a very high rate of speed. They are called SCCA Spec Racer with a top speed of 135mph. I have a feeling I will be considered the old grandpa of the track.

I think I forgot to post this, but I passed my CISSP (Certified Information Security Systems Professional) test a few weeks back. It’s a very hard test to pass, typically only 50% of the people who take it pass. So I feel really good about that.

The Clay County Fair was fun. Not as much food on a stick, but still fun. The main event was the Chuck Wagon Racing. Totally insane. I got a bunch of pictures, but the one below is the best.

On the running front, I am still doing good. We have a trip to northern Minnesota coming up and I am looking for trails to do some of my running on while we are there. I think it would awesome to hit the trails while the leaves are still changing color. I will soon be in the market for cold-weather running gear.

I have also now gone about 2 months of eating at least one apple a day. The hardest part has been keeping the apples in stock. I even had an apple each day of the MN State Fair and the Clay County fair.

The Minnesota State Fair is over, but the Clay County Fair is just beginning. We will be there this weekend both Saturday and Sunday. It sounds like we will be going to the Chuck Wagon Races. Should be interesting.

I did it! My first 5k run is done and I finished. I finished last, but I still finished. My final time was 36:24. My personal best time. It was a lot of fun and I even saw a few people I knew there. The only negative is that I was beat by a 7 year old. I will beat her next time.

We are “mostly” unpacked. Nicole went back to work and I, for some odd reason, decided to go running today. I was pooped out to say the least after walking 22+ miles in two days. Certainly not my best run. But I had to get out there to run off the cookies and to get ready for my first 5k on Saturday morning.

I also managed to get all of our pictures posted from our trip. Be sure to click through all the pages. My night time pics are on the last couple.

http://www.chadandnicoleonastick.com/pictures/statefair09

Our 2nd (and last) day at the fair was a full one. We arrived around 9:30am and left just after 9:30pm. A 12 hour day, our longest by far. My pedometer shows I walked 13.2 miles. My feet still don’t hurt, oddly enough, but we are both pretty tired.

Here are some of the highlights:
- We both got Henna Tattoos that should last around 2-4 weeks. Check the flickr account for pictures of what we got.
- I tried the Texas Steak Dinner on a Stick. It is one of my new favorites. It also happens to be the most expensive thing on a stick I have purchased at $8.75.
- Staying after dark allowed me to try taking some night pictures of the fair. Some would call them blurry, I call them “Artistic”.
- Nicole tried a butterscotch covered frozen Twinkie and liked it.

I am now very tired and will post anything else I can think of and all of the pictures once we get back home.