Fun in Fargo

I think Montana is known as "Big Sky Country", but that could easily apply to North Dakota. With the flat terrain and few trees, the sky is the dominant feature of the landscape. It makes sunny days seem sunnier and stormy days more threatening.

We had great weather last weekend. Across the highway from our hotel is the Red River Zoo, which is a perfect size for young kids. When you drive past the zoo, you can see the camels from the highway! The kids and I spent Saturday morning there. They enjoyed the farm animals the best, especially the cow with the really long tongue and the pigmy goats. We saw 4-day-old twin goats that were so cute. The best part for Billy and Maddy was an old-fashioned merry-go-round -- we rode it twice. The first time Billy sat on the "couch" (one of the benches on the merry-go-round), but the second time he decided to "race" his sister on one of the horses.

Sunday we drove to one of the local parks near the river and rode our bikes along the river bike path to downtown Fargo. We would cross over these little bridges into Minnesota and back again. There was an arts and crafts festival in town so we went to that -- it was a lot like the St. Johns Mint Festival in Michigan. We probably rode close to 15 miles, which is a lot for us. (Fortunately, most of it was flat). We also saw a floodstage marker which measured how high the Red River has been when it flooded. The worst was 10 years ago, when it was 40 feet above floodstage and topped the dike, flooding downtown.

Some observations about Fargo:

• There aren't a lot of burger fast food places (I've seen 2 McDonalds and 1 Wendy's), but there are several different taco chains, including Taco Bell.




• The Starbucks here all have drive thrus (good) but no Madeleine cookies (bad!) Apparently the cookies are a regional thing. It's too bad, because they are the kids' favorite.




• The grocery stores here treat Italian food as ethnic cuisine. Pasta, sauce, etc. are in a small section in the "ethnic foods" aisle between Mexican and Asian food. In NJ stores it's a lot easier to find.
  

Hmm...all food related.

Things I miss from home:

• Family (of course)!




• Bagels




• Good Italian food (although we have found good Thai and Greek restaurants)




• TiVo!




• Our house and backyard. Our kitchen is going to seem so spacious when we get back!




• Dates. Matt and I were supposed to have our first ND date tonight, but Matt woke up with a fever this morning, so we'll have to reschedule. One of the girls from daycare was going to babysit. Maybe next week.
  

It's supposed to be nice weather this weekend too...we're hoping to get to one of the state parks in MN to do some biking and lake-swimming.

Talk to you soon!