For Minnesota State Fair enthusiasts, it’s the most wonderful time of the year

At 7 a.m., the gates opened and the Great Minnesota Get-Together got going.

If the Minnesota State Fair is your thing, the opening hours of opening day are a special sort of magic. The air is cool, the crowds are manageable and most of the exhibits are still closed, so you pretty much have the place to yourself.

Little kids, still in pajamas, pad after parents who had to load everyone and everything into the car before dawn to make it to Falcon Heights in time.

You can get right up to the rail of the Department of Natural Resources’ fish pond to look at the fish. Nobody gets between you and the fish at 7 a.m. Nobody.

It’s so early, most of the animals in the Miracle of Birth barn are still pregnant.

The coffee is freshly brewed. The bathrooms are sparkling. When the cookie ovens fire up, you’re in pole position to snag the first bucket.

The hardest part is waiting until the doors to the exhibits open at 9 a.m. The lines to drop off entries for the Creative Arts competition stretched for hours last weekend. This year’s blue ribbon pies and cookies and crop art and quilts and giant vegetables are going to be amazing.

Vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz didn’t put in his usual appearance at the gates, since the opening day of the fair falls on the last day of the Democratic National Convention. But Minnesota crop artists have ensured a wall-to-wall Walz presence anyway.

Minnesota’s governor joined Kamala Harris’ ticket one day before the deadline to register for this year’s crop art competition — just enough time to inspire a bumper crop of entries this year. Crop artist extraordinaire Teresa Anderson, who maintains the cropart.com site, is building a page of Tim Walz crop art entries, if you want a sneak peek.

If the fair is more of a long-distance spectator sport for you, read on in the Minnesota Star Tribune from now through Sept. 2.