May 12, Day 3, To and Fro in North Dakota and Minnesota

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Today was going to be a long day of driving west of Fargo in the morning, then east of Fargo in the afternoon. We got an early start, leaving the hotel about 8am, to head to breakfast at a local Perkins Restaurant. We ordered our breakfast, and the waitress tells us that Monday is free pie day. Wooohoooo! Patrise orders the strawberry pie, I order the apple pie. We take the pies to go, to be enjoyed later in the day.

We left Perkins and stopped at a local Walmart, to by me a bathing suit and sunglasses. I did not bring a bathing suit, but my wife insists we will be getting into a pool somewhere on this trip. I did bring my sunglasses, but lost them yesterday. From Walmart, we head to our first real stop of the day, the Fargo-Moorhead Visitors Center. This visit helped to make clear that Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN are actually one metropolitan region, separated by a state boundary, the Red River. This also adds more clarity to the slogan we read on the sign at the Civic Center yesterday: “There’s Far Mor to Fargo.” Cute. We picked up some brochures from the visitor center, then headed to I-94 West to our long-range destination this morning. We drove through ag country west of Fargo, headed for Jamestown, ND and the National Bison Discovery Center (formerly called the National Buffalo Museum.)

At the NBDC, we saw a short film and viewed exhibits about the history and importance of the bison in North America. We learned about its existence going all the way back in pre-history. Did you know that ancient bison, bison antiquus, was much larger than its current day descendants and coexisted with the woolly mammoth? The bison was almost wiped out in the United States, due to wholesale slaughter and habitat loss brought about by western expansion. The near-extinction of the bison and the near-extinction of the way of life for Native American Plains tribes go hand in hand.

Due to the efforts of a small handful of conservationists and private landowners, the American bison was brought back from 700-1000 animals, to now a total near 400,000 animals distributed in various herds on public and private lands in several U.S. states. There is now a National Buffalo Hall of Fame, into which many of the original and subsequent conservationists have been drafted, including Atlanta’s own Ted Turner. (For those who are not familiar with Ted Turner, he is the business visionary who foresaw the rise of cable TV, establishing Turner Network Television, TNT, and cablevision. He purchased and owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team for many, many years, and broadcasted Braves game on his cable networks, making them the first true “national” sports team in the U.S.) Ted Turner used a significant portion of his wealth to purchase large tracts of land in Montana and other states and helped to reestablish large bison herds on western lands.

As we were leaving the Discovery Center, we stopped by the art installation known as Dakota Thunder, “the world’s largest buffalo.” We took photos and then headed back to the car to make the 90-mile drive back to Fargo.  Here are photos from our visit to the Bison Discovery Center. Those are followed by photos from scenes along the highway. Clearly, agriculture is dominant in North Dakota, so you see farmlands, farmhouses, and farm equipment sales centers. Notice that there is a haze in many of these pictures. The winds were 25mph with many gusts up to 45mph. The winds put a lot of dust into the air.

Since I drove out to Jamestown, Patrise offered to drive and drove back to the hotel. Both of us were tired, but I was zonked! I laid down to take a nap, while she sat awake in the suite room. After an hour and a half of rest, we prepared to head out for our second long journey of the day. This afternoon, instead of driving west, we would drive east along the I-94 corridor into Minnesota. Our destination was Alexandria, MN, roughly half-way between Fargo and Minneapolis. We were planning to meet Patrise’s brother, Josh. Patrise did not want him to drive the 3-1/2 hours from Minneapolis to Fargo, only to turn around and reverse the trip after our dinner. It was a good decision, but it was still a long drive. Here is a map showing I-94 to Jamestown (west of Fargo) and I-94 to Alexandria (east of Fargo).

This part of Minnesota is clearly very agricultural. However, it is not as flat as North Dakota, with many more rolling hills, much more water, in the form of lakes, and seemingly more populated. Here are some photos of the northwestern Minnesota countryside taken on the drive to and from Alexandria.

Having arrived at Angelina’s Restaurant in Alexandria, we were warmly greeted by Josh and proceeded to have dinner and great conversation. It was so good spending time with him, hearing how he and Christilyn are doing after one year of marriage, to hear about their respective careers and to share with him how our lives have been, since we saw him last April (in Minneapolis for his wedding.) We were sorry to learn that his grandmother died suddenly about three months ago. We had only met her a couple of times, but she was a strong, important lovingly influential presence in Josh’s life.

After visiting over a meal, we hit the road returning to Fargo.  Tomorrow, we will leave North Dakota, flying to Winnipeg by way of Minneapolis. We have visited North Dakota, so mission completed. The 50th state is now a part of our travel history and personal stories.

Before closing, I should mention another eventful moment that happended back in Atlanta today. Our godson, John Baptiste "Jay" Hammond IV completed college, graduating from Emory University this morning. We wished we could have been there. We have known him and watched him grow, since he was born. He has had several struggles during his educational journey. He was in the high school cohort, which had its graduation cancelled by COVID. He spent his freshman year off campus, due to public health precautions. He has struggled with issues of accpetance, learning love and loving, healthy relationships, and most importantly trying to find what his early career path would be following completion of college.

Jay Jammond, we love you and are so very proud of you, young man!

Jay Hammond (center) pictured with his mother, Yoko (left) and brother James (right)