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Message
Fargo ND Trip Review (Pic Heavy)
Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:10 pm
Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:10 pm
Well, I accomplished my goal for this year and have officially hit all 50 states after this trip to North Dakota
. Overall had a good time in Fargo for a very quick visit. The city of Fargo is located right on the border between ND an MN with Moorhead being on the MN side.
Day 1-
Both flights to Minneapolis and to Fargo ended up being oversold so a few lucky souls got $$ to take later flights. Given the next flights were 7 hours and 3 hours later, I opted to stay on my original flights. Flew into the Fargo airport where there are 6 gates. The rental car counter is as soon as you go down the escalators and then the vehicle is pretty much right outside. The airport is only about 10 minutes north of the main downtown area so drove straight to the hotel (Radisson Blu) to check-in. In downtown Fargo, there are plenty of garages and they all have free parking on weekends after 6pm. View of the room below
It was actually really nice, I enjoyed this hotel a lot as it was walkable to everything. Including this park nearby. "The city of far more"
After dropping my things in the room, went to dinner at the blarney stone. Didn't have great service, but the beer was good. From there I got back in the rental and drove to the scheels arena fargo for a concert. I must admit I didn't know who this band was, but when I looked up their music I recognized "Mr. Roboto" and "Come Sail Away" so figured for $30 it might be worth it.
Ended up at the concert and had good seats for the price. Styx put on a great show! Didn't know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised
Called it during Come Sail Away which was their closing song. Ended up back at the hotel to crash for day 2

Day 1-
Both flights to Minneapolis and to Fargo ended up being oversold so a few lucky souls got $$ to take later flights. Given the next flights were 7 hours and 3 hours later, I opted to stay on my original flights. Flew into the Fargo airport where there are 6 gates. The rental car counter is as soon as you go down the escalators and then the vehicle is pretty much right outside. The airport is only about 10 minutes north of the main downtown area so drove straight to the hotel (Radisson Blu) to check-in. In downtown Fargo, there are plenty of garages and they all have free parking on weekends after 6pm. View of the room below
It was actually really nice, I enjoyed this hotel a lot as it was walkable to everything. Including this park nearby. "The city of far more"
After dropping my things in the room, went to dinner at the blarney stone. Didn't have great service, but the beer was good. From there I got back in the rental and drove to the scheels arena fargo for a concert. I must admit I didn't know who this band was, but when I looked up their music I recognized "Mr. Roboto" and "Come Sail Away" so figured for $30 it might be worth it.
Ended up at the concert and had good seats for the price. Styx put on a great show! Didn't know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised
Called it during Come Sail Away which was their closing song. Ended up back at the hotel to crash for day 2

Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:11 pm to CuseTiger
Day 2- Wanted some good coffee and breakfast so walked over to the Moonrise Cafe. Think I had a cinnamon sugar latte and it hit the spot
Walked around downtown a bit to explore. It's really not that big of a downtown and I didn't have any issues making my way around. It was a 'cool' 63*F in the morning
They set up a farmers market on saturday mornings apparently, but i wanted to head over to the Hjemkomst Center on the MN side to explore a few things.
Quick drive over to the Hjemkomst and got to learn all about this viking boat that they built in MN and sailed all the way across the great lakes, through the Erie canal, past the GW bridge in NYC, and across the atlantic to Norway. Pretty impressive that they did this, did anyone here know about this?
Also in this center they had some native american history of the dakotas area. I'm not a history buff but it was interesting to learn about the Dakota War in 1862
They also had a quilt exhibit. I was quite impressed at the ability of people able to make a quilt that looks like below
Once I finished with the quilts, I went upstairs to get a tour of some random church they had out back. I did not know anything about stave churches, but got to learn about them. Pretty much only exist in Norway, stave is just a description of an upright piece of wood but I think it's the style of church.
The interior was impressive as well. I think they use it for small wedding venues currently
Walked around downtown a bit to explore. It's really not that big of a downtown and I didn't have any issues making my way around. It was a 'cool' 63*F in the morning
They set up a farmers market on saturday mornings apparently, but i wanted to head over to the Hjemkomst Center on the MN side to explore a few things.
Quick drive over to the Hjemkomst and got to learn all about this viking boat that they built in MN and sailed all the way across the great lakes, through the Erie canal, past the GW bridge in NYC, and across the atlantic to Norway. Pretty impressive that they did this, did anyone here know about this?
Also in this center they had some native american history of the dakotas area. I'm not a history buff but it was interesting to learn about the Dakota War in 1862
They also had a quilt exhibit. I was quite impressed at the ability of people able to make a quilt that looks like below
Once I finished with the quilts, I went upstairs to get a tour of some random church they had out back. I did not know anything about stave churches, but got to learn about them. Pretty much only exist in Norway, stave is just a description of an upright piece of wood but I think it's the style of church.
The interior was impressive as well. I think they use it for small wedding venues currently
This post was edited on 9/2/24 at 8:19 pm
Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:19 pm to CuseTiger
Day 2 Continued-
After the Hjemkomst center, I opted to go to the visitor center. I had heard they had a woodchipper replica as seen in the movie Fargo and can confirm it does exist
Once going in, I noticed a sign that said best for last club, 50th state.
Since it was my 50th state, I asked one of the workers if there was anything special for me stopping by. They took my picture holding up 50 next to the sign, signed a certificate and gave it to me to keep, signed me up for the "Best for Last" club, and gave me a free tshirt. Super happy i stopped by here, I guess a lot of people leave this for their last state.
Leaving the visitor center on a high, I went to Bonanzaville. Think pioneer village town that has a bunch of old houses, school houses, churches, barber shops, cars, engines, tractors, airplanes, trains, anything you could think of. Most of it was related to life in the past in ND and MN. I thought it was pretty cool to wander and learn about the past there
Fargo's first house
School house
Tractors galore
Once I finished at Bonanza, I made my way to the West Acres mall. They had a Roger Maris 'museum' which is a bunch of memorabilia from Roger Maris' days of playing baseball as a Yankee. 61 in '61
After the mall, went over to Brewhalla and Drekker Brewing Company to meet a fellow poster on here
. I was really impressed by this indoor food, alcohol, and shop space. The beers from Drekker were great, had really good sours and IPAs.
From there, I went back to the hotel and walked past this event in downtown Fargo. A 'diversity' celebration
Went to the bar Sidestreet Grille and Pub to try and watch the LSU game. After searching through 200 channels, he suggested trying to watch on streameast. It was there that I learned I was off by a full day for the LSU game...
. Ate and went back to the hotel for the night.
After the Hjemkomst center, I opted to go to the visitor center. I had heard they had a woodchipper replica as seen in the movie Fargo and can confirm it does exist
Once going in, I noticed a sign that said best for last club, 50th state.
Since it was my 50th state, I asked one of the workers if there was anything special for me stopping by. They took my picture holding up 50 next to the sign, signed a certificate and gave it to me to keep, signed me up for the "Best for Last" club, and gave me a free tshirt. Super happy i stopped by here, I guess a lot of people leave this for their last state.
Leaving the visitor center on a high, I went to Bonanzaville. Think pioneer village town that has a bunch of old houses, school houses, churches, barber shops, cars, engines, tractors, airplanes, trains, anything you could think of. Most of it was related to life in the past in ND and MN. I thought it was pretty cool to wander and learn about the past there
Fargo's first house
School house
Tractors galore
Once I finished at Bonanza, I made my way to the West Acres mall. They had a Roger Maris 'museum' which is a bunch of memorabilia from Roger Maris' days of playing baseball as a Yankee. 61 in '61
After the mall, went over to Brewhalla and Drekker Brewing Company to meet a fellow poster on here
From there, I went back to the hotel and walked past this event in downtown Fargo. A 'diversity' celebration
Went to the bar Sidestreet Grille and Pub to try and watch the LSU game. After searching through 200 channels, he suggested trying to watch on streameast. It was there that I learned I was off by a full day for the LSU game...
This post was edited on 9/2/24 at 8:31 pm
Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:34 pm to CuseTiger
Day 3-
Had to check out of the hotel so did that and walked over to what had good reviews of a breakfast spot in BernBaums. Had some coffee and a bagel then decided to catch an earlier flight back.
I had seen and accomplished what I wanted to in ND and was thrilled to have checked off that box. This was the perfect time of the year to go to ND as it felt like the beginning of fall but still warm enough during the days for shorts. If you need to check ND off, I'd recommend Fargo for a quick trip similar to this. Hope everyone enjoyed the read
Had to check out of the hotel so did that and walked over to what had good reviews of a breakfast spot in BernBaums. Had some coffee and a bagel then decided to catch an earlier flight back.
I had seen and accomplished what I wanted to in ND and was thrilled to have checked off that box. This was the perfect time of the year to go to ND as it felt like the beginning of fall but still warm enough during the days for shorts. If you need to check ND off, I'd recommend Fargo for a quick trip similar to this. Hope everyone enjoyed the read
Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:41 pm to CuseTiger
Drekker is very, very solid. I remember when they released the concept for Brewhalla. People love it. Not sure if/when I'll ever get to Fargo, but it's nice that Drekker distributes well in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:52 pm to CuseTiger
It was great catching up with you again CuseTiger, glad you enjoyed your time in Fargo! I would say you captured most of the highlights of Fargo and visited at the perfect time of year.
Posted on 9/2/24 at 8:54 pm to CuseTiger
Neat review. Did you do the same for other states?
Posted on 9/2/24 at 11:06 pm to The Boat
quote:
Did you join the best for last club?
Someone didn't read the whole review
Posted on 9/2/24 at 11:11 pm to RonFNSwanson
I’ve lived in North Dakota. It’s important to me.

This post was edited on 9/2/24 at 11:32 pm
Posted on 9/3/24 at 5:00 pm to CuseTiger
Brewhalla looks really cool! I used to travel to Fargo frequently for work, but it's been about 20 years since I've been there. 20 years ago there weren't a lot of great food choices, so we mostly stuck with chains.
Downtown looks exactly the same. I've seen everything you posted except for Bonanzaville. The Hjfkmjglmst ship is really cool. We just called it something that basically sounded like spitting because every name up there has 10 consonants for every vowel. The church is also really cool.
The people in North Dakota are some of the nicest and most hard working you will find. But then they came from Viking stock and made a place to live that was incredibly inhospitable for much of the time. We always joked that the women up there were "sturdy women" because a guy was looking for someone who could feed the cows when there was a blizzard instead of a cute southern belle!
Fargo is a very nice place. But I could not imagine living somewhere that doesn't get up to zero. I was once there for an audit for 2 weeks and it didn't get up to zero the whole time. That's just too damn cold!
Downtown looks exactly the same. I've seen everything you posted except for Bonanzaville. The Hjfkmjglmst ship is really cool. We just called it something that basically sounded like spitting because every name up there has 10 consonants for every vowel. The church is also really cool.
The people in North Dakota are some of the nicest and most hard working you will find. But then they came from Viking stock and made a place to live that was incredibly inhospitable for much of the time. We always joked that the women up there were "sturdy women" because a guy was looking for someone who could feed the cows when there was a blizzard instead of a cute southern belle!
Fargo is a very nice place. But I could not imagine living somewhere that doesn't get up to zero. I was once there for an audit for 2 weeks and it didn't get up to zero the whole time. That's just too damn cold!
Posted on 9/4/24 at 2:33 pm to CuseTiger
You didn't know who Styx was?
Growing up, in Northern Wisconsin we used to say it was "where the men are men, and so are the women". Granted, the means something different these days, but you get the idea.
quote:
We always joked that the women up there were "sturdy women" because a guy was looking for someone who could feed the cows when there was a blizzard instead of a cute southern belle!
Growing up, in Northern Wisconsin we used to say it was "where the men are men, and so are the women". Granted, the means something different these days, but you get the idea.
This post was edited on 9/4/24 at 2:35 pm
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