amberwavestour: Fans of Fargo

While in Vero over the weekend, Dana and I made some final tweaks to our North Dakota agenda, opting to remain in Fargo a 3rd night and reduce our stay in Bismarck to a single night. We head to the capital city today after a day of scenic drives through some smaller towns along the way, so I'm not sure yet whether we'll regret only having a single evening and morning there, but we are all very happy to have had more time in Fargo, also known as F-M or Fargo-Moorehead for the "twin cities" across the Red River of the North that creates the border between North Dakota and Minnesota.

Daniel's day started super early as he was out walking through the town and to a nearby park, which he promptly took us all back to after breakfast. Even with curtains drawn, that early sunrise seeps in and makes you want to get an early start to your day. Breakfast was at BernBaum's, the bagel shop down the street that served the best latke we could remember having though the lovely clerk at the register wasn't sure how to pronounce the word (latkay or latkey, she asked, as Daniel assured her that Jews from South Florida pronounce it latkuh)

After walking down Main Street to the park, we took a different route back to the Plains Museum and passed an amazing vintage store whose proprietor told us about the various costumes she had purchased from auctions throughout the years while Daniel tried on and purchased a couple of fabulous vintage shirts, Maddie and I browsed and relaxed, and Dana strategized how to get that little coffee table with its adorable ottomans back to Hollywood.

On our walk throughout the downtown these past few days, we have enjoyed reading about the history of Fargo on markers such as this one placed on every street corner, detailing everything from Fargo's artistic history (with vaudeville shows and the famed Fargo theater) to agriculture (lots of wheat! :) to finance (we passed the local bank still in operation from the 20's) and so on.

My wish for the day was to visit the Plains Art Museum, which promised to be my favorite kind of museum experience - small, intimate, and hyper focused. Indeed, it was all those things. We had reserved tickets to see the underwhelming Spiderverse film at 2:00, so we had just about an hour to wander through the two exhibits and the wonderful space the museum now inhabits. Once the International Harvester Warehouse building, architects transformed it into one of only two museums in North Dakota (and only 700 in the country) to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The current exhibits are works by Minnesotan artist Hazel Belvo and Gerald Cournoyer, who represents the Lakota tribe.

The exhibits were interesting, beautiful, poignant. Seeing how Belvo's work went from vibrant depictions of the many women in her life to almost completely void of color after her son died of leukemia was astounding. And I loved how Counoyer's exhibit included a glimpse into HOW he creates his vivid art works.

Love the glimpse behind the creation of the art

What we will remember most from our visit to this tiny gem of a museum was arriving at the same time as another older couple (the only other people we saw there for the first 30 minutes) and discussing whether to get on the elevator at the same time. They wanted to let us take it on our own, but Dana said that being from South Florida, we don't consider sharing the elevator with two more a crowd, which prompted the gentleman to say he was also from South Florida, Hollywood, in fact. Upon further discussion later on, Dana learned that they live in Hollybrook, the same community where Adrienne lives. Talk about a small world! When we asked them what brought them to North Dakota, they said, "We'd never been." I hope that at 86, Dana and I are still making trips like this one!

Our next stop was Brewhalla, a new food hall/brewery that had been recommended by a lovely sales clerk who was concerned we'd have lots of rain during our stay and wanted to give us fun indoor things to do. As you can see in the photo below, the weather remained clear for much of our stay, opting to rain its hardest while we were in the interminably long (though beautifully animated) Spiderverse. With shops, lots of food options, and a brewery, I can understand why this is a popular new offering here in Fargo.

After awaking from our Spiderverse snooze, we checked out the West Acres mall, which houses a mini museum for Roger Maris and a yearly watercolor judged exhibition, in addition to your garden variety of shops.

One of the things I love most about vacationing in the mid-west is how manageable everything is. We were able to walk all around downtown, shop in a few darling stores, go to a museum, check out a cool spot for lunch and for dinner, see an interminably long movie and have ice cream in one of the OG Dairy Queens, located in Moorehead, Minnesota, and we never felt rushed or pressed for time once. Everything just moves at a slower pace, with fewer people, less traffic, shorter routes. It's all just so civilized.

As we get ready to pack up and head on a road tripping kind of day, I'll leave you with this image of "Wood-Chip Marge," which lives upstairs in the historic Fargo theater. Though the titular film and its accompanying television series are set and filmed largely in Minnesota, Fargo is proud to have provided its name to that weird and wonderful movie.