FarGo
Trip Start
Aug 14, 2010
1
17
24
Trip End
Sep 05, 2010
Where I stayed
Hilton Garden Inn Fargo
Fargo, North Dakota
Monday, August 30, 2010
Miles traveled: 200
States covered: North Dakota
Weather: Rainy, with intermittent whining
Meltdowns: Abby 3 meltdowns, resulting in 3 time outs and loss of beloved flip flops for the day, possible ramifications for tomorrow TBD
Highlights: North Dakota Capitol, Largest Buffalo in the World (unnamed), Fargo Mall (actually pretty sad), Owen turned 4 months today!
Abby QOTD: "Remember the ketchup issue." (Reflecting back to lunch when her dad, understandably fed up with her refusal to share ketchup took the 2 ketchup cups on the table and to her amazement dumped them together on the tray and proclaimed, "Here's how we fix that." (Paul QOTD)
Mommy QOTD: "There is no whine in team." (Witty, but did not stop the whining as we were hurrying to get in the car during a deluge after dinner at Panchero's -- Yvette, are you jealous?)
Belated update: We hit 3000 miles just prior to New Salem, ND (the big cow) yesterday, for all of you tracking that.
North Dakota Trivia du jour: "Dakota" means what in Sioux?
Yesterday's Trivia: No participants. Answer: 6 National Park sites dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt? Bonus: Ann and Paul have visited 4.
We started and ended our day in serious rain storms both of which seemed to peak at the exact time we needed to load or unload the car. Our first stop was the North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck. As Karen (our Australian GPS voice) announced we were arriving at the North Dakota State Capitol and we saw the 18 story tower that is the Capitol, Paul exclaimed "This is the crummiest capitol we've seen." (Paul runner up QOTD) It is known as the 'Skyscraper of the Plains' (and it does tower over Bismarck). After finding a spot in the "ample & accessible parking" (Paul gives ND credit for that) we had a talk with the very friendly man at the Information desk, who frankly seemed surprised anyone would come from Maryland to visit, told us that beyond the sad "Roughrider Hall of Fame" portraits (Lawrence Welk and Phil Jackson were the highlights) and the legislative chambers, there really wasn't much else to see. He did tout the "efficiency" of the building, comprised of 83% office buildings, and not wasting space -- sure, no wasted space on silly things like domes or anything. No dome, and the outside doesn't appear very stately, but the skyscraper design did provide a nice view from the 18th floor observation area. The inside was retro cool art deco (Uncle Jeff would have liked it) with a particularly grand entrance and the girls "biffies" (as the framed article in the bathroom called them) were fancy with wicker chairs, but otherwise not a real show stopper of a building.
Then we high tailed it East with a stop in Jamestown. For all you large animal statue lovers (Zoe and Michael) the big stop today was to see the World's Largest Buffalo (which is technically a bison). Strangely, although erected in 1959 they are just now having a contest to name the buffalo? Ann voted for "Jamestown Jamie" and a local we met told us her husband did put in a vote for Jamestown Jim. The National Buffalo Museum (which we did not pay to tour) also had a live albino buffalo roaming the grounds which we did catch a glimpse of.
Then it was back on the road to Fargo. The rest of the trip we just saw a lot of wheat, sunflowers (ND is #1 sunflower producing state) and tons of hay being bailed. Paul and Ann, who are completely agriculturally illiterate (as you may recall from our inability to identify a single crop besides corn on our 2007 Odyssey) are still trying to understand the bailing process.
In a somewhat futile search for a few North Dakota souvenirs, we had a short and weird stop at the Fargo West Acres mall. Apparently not used to requests about souvenirs, the people from the hotel sent us to some lame places, including a Scandinavian gifts store. (If we wanted Norway t-shirts, we'll get them when we go to Norway.) Not sure about this friendliest people things, we're not meeting them...and no one seems to be able to understand our "accents" -- we were asked today if we were from the "deep South" and when Ann said "No, we are from Maryland" the lady looked at us very strange. (We now think to North Dakotans, Maryland is the deep South.)
No Cohen brothers sightings...and our welcome letter from the General Manager at the Hilton Garden Inn was quick to point out that "the movie was actually filmed in Brainerd, MN!" (exclamation point in original text)
And finally, Happy 4 months to Owen today!
Check back tomorrow for photos. . . the extremely slow internet access at our Hilton Garden Inn has frustrated our attempts to post them. Hopefully, you can read this.
Comments
Without Google I am powerless: I think Dakota means "Truck from Dodge" but I am not confident of that one. Of course the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title was "Fargo North Decoder," a Sherlock Holmes meets Inspector Cluseau-type character on a 1970s children's TV show that was not Sesame Street. Counter-trivia of the day: What was that TV show?
Had to wiki it, but they say it means ally....It.s fun to hear you describe some of the same ND "wonders "we saw. We also had a horrible time finding motels and never could find anyplace near Dickinson area, ended up in Glendive, MT instead (they should have skipped the first 4 letters)Glad youre heading home. We miss you..
I am shocked to learn "fargo" was not filmed in fargo!!!..WAG,.dakota means "great bison"....miss y'all...BTW,when i was a kid and a family moved into our n.y. town from Baltimore we thought of them as from the deep south and confederates....