The other things that change are little peculiarities. Accents, dialects, restaurants... The east coast has little deli places with pizza and hoagies. The west coast has Jack in the Box and Mr Chau's [drive thru chinese!]
Minnesota though has The Fair. Apparently New Jersey and California have state fairs, but they're nothing. They don't have TV ads, they don't have fleets of buses driving people from around the state to this thing. And they didn't get like 90% of the state population going to them. The Minnesota fair gets everyone. It's not "Hey, you goin' to the Fair?" it's "Hey, you goin' to the Fair tonight?".
And invariably people go to do one thing: Eat. Now, I'm not one to knock eating for the sake of eating, but the Fair is different. I'm not one to knock bad food either (see Jack in the Box and Mr Chau's above), but the food at the Fair all has two common aspects. One: it's fried, and Two: it's on a stick. I fail to see the drawing power of a fried snickers bar on a stick or a fried pickle on a stick or apple pie on a stick... It's just weird.
Yes, I had some today. I liked it. (It was just meat balls and tater tots coated in breading and deep fried, with this delicious gravy/dip.)
I do tend to stay away from some of the greasiest foods, though. A deep fried onion is delicious, but a deep fried Twinkie is just disgusting.
There's plenty of stuff besides food at the fair, though. Several years ago, they had awesome Legos at the 4-H building; my brothers and I tried to build a gear setup to get the most torque possible. We learned that the little plastic axles can't handle much torque. [grin]
The parades are good, and so are the fireworks and the lumberjack competitions. Also, the Eco Experience is great for raising public awareness. (I volunteered there to answer questions about the University of Minnesota Solar Car and electric vehicles in general. That got me free admission to the fair!)