Relaxing in Fargo

So what little did we know about Fargo?  That would be just how little there is to do there that we couldn’t do elsewhere.

We found Fargo to be a very nice town with very nice hotels.  But, as I mentioned earlier, I think that the hotels are so nice because you will probably spend a lot of time in them!

That being said, we found our time in Fargo to be remarkably relaxing and low-key, which was perfect for this point of our vacation.  This was our first place to spend more than one night, and it wasn’t a bad place to do that, in spite of tornado sirens and questionable alien restaurants.

So, what did we end up doing in Fargo?

On Tuesday morning, July 5, we slept in, ate breakfast, and then headed to Walmart.  Yep, Walmart.  Always a favorite vacation destination.  I think I mentioned earlier that Jeff had forgotten his blood-pressure medicine, so we stopped at Walmart to see if he could get an emergency supply to last the rest of the trip.  Of course, errands like this always take longer than I think they should, and it was a good hour before we were finally done there.

Then, it was on to the Children’s Museum at Yunker Farm, which is probably one of the few sights unique to Fargo.  Not that there aren’t children’s museums (and lots of ‘em) elsewhere, but each one tends to have its own personal flavor, and Fargo’s was no different.

I am not a big fan of children’s museum, probably because I’m not a child, but our kids have always liked them.  Charlotte is about to age out, I think, but, with Jeremy, she has a good reason to go and still enjoy herself!

Anyway, this flavor of children’s museum had fun bubble activities…

…a train…

…a special toddler room, where Jeremy found this toy that he tried to take home with him…

…and a few things that the bigger kids liked, too.

There was also a tiny, creaky carousel, with a map painted on the wall that told us where we were.

There was supposed to be mini-golf and an alphabet garden, but those were overgrown and closed.  So, we took one final picture at Yunker Farm and headed out.

We grabbed lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings and tried to figure out what to do next.  We stopped back by the Visitors Center and found lots of brochures, but they were mostly for hotels and restaurants and sights that weren’t even in Fargo.

So, at this point, we decided to just go back to the hotel.  We had found out that morning that the fireworks from the previous night had been rescheduled for tonight, so we thought that Jeremy could take a good nap in the hotel while the kids swam in the cool pool.  I joined Jeremy, and Jeff hung out with the older two kids.
Around 4:00, we grabbed an early supper that the hotel offered as a “Manager’s Social” and then headed to a place called Thunder Road, the local mini-golf/go-kart/batting cage place.

This ended up being a lot of fun.  We pushed Jeremy in his stroller through a round of mini-golf, and then we each took a turn in the batting cages.

Then, Jeff, Charlotte, and Elijah took a spin on the go-karts.  Charlotte drove her own, which was pretty comical, at least to me observing her.  Being just 11, she’s never driven anything before, so she was very, very slow and very, very careful.  I think that everyone else out there got at least one extra lap, and then poor Charlotte rammed her car into the row in front of her when she tried to park it.  Oops.  She was more embarrassed than hurt, especially when the  teenaged attendant told her that she needed to put on the brakes.  Yeah, thanks, she didn’t know that!

Since Jeremy had not been able to participate thus far at Thunder Road, big spenders that we are, we splurged on a 50-cent ride for him.  I think he liked it.

Afterwards, we still had HOURS before the fireworks started, so we looked up a Cold Stone Creamery, because Jeff had a gift card from basketball coaching.  They were having a special of buy one-get one kids’ sundaes, so I don’t even think we managed to spend $15 on typically expensive ice cream! 
Fargo was turning out to be quite the bargain.
Finally, we decided that we might as well head over to the fireworks, as we really weren’t sure about the parking situation.  It turned out to be pretty easy, so we took the blanket that we borrowed from the hotel, our bottle of bug spray, and our card games and found a spot just outside the Minnesota State University at Moorhead’s football stadium.

This is the point in our vacation where we discovered that the state bird of Minnesota is actually the mosquito.  HOLY SMOKES!  Those babies were huge.  We doused ourselves with bug spray (or so we thought) and were STILL getting bitten…through our clothes, on any bit of exposed skin.  We sprayed ourselves over and over to no avail.  Poor Jeremy got bitten on his cheek before I slapped some bug spray there, too.

In spite of the mosquitoes on steroids, we played Monopoly Deal until it got too dark, and then we lay down to enjoy the show, which was fantastic!  I didn’t take any pictures of the fireworks because Jeremy was lying on my chest and covering his ears with my hands.  Once the noise was cut, he stopped squirming and was entranced with the show, as were we all.

When the show was over, we headed back to our hotel, with a quick run through Wendy’s since it was nearly midnight, and we were all hungry again.  Then, it was off to bed, as we were driving to Minneapolis the next day.

We would find the next leg of our trip significantly different from Fargo!