When we had mentioned to friends that we planned to visit all 48 states in the continental US, quite a few people (all Americans) had responded that we could probably skip a few! When Michael had been researching the trip, North Dakota was one of the states that we realized we'd not be spending time in because there wasn't as much to see, so our time here would be concentrated in one city: Fargo.
Our first impressions when we arrived was that it was a rather quiet city. Despite having a population of over 133,000 people, there were few people walking the streets, and it seemed fairly industrial as we drove in. While we couldn't stay further at our parking spot, the benefit of it not being busy as a city was that we found another place to park on the street fairly easily, and didn't have to pay for parking even though we were downtown!
The Plains Art Museum
The Plains Art Museum is a free museum downtown, housed in a restored warehouse, with high ceilings and wooden beams. There are rotating exhibits of contemporary and international art. We liked all three rotating exhibits that we saw. The first, Floating Beauty: Women in the Art of Ukiyo-E, showed historical perspectives on women and their depiction in art in Japan's Edo period, including over 50 woodblock prints (we didn't realize how much goes into a single woodblock--basically, a new one is created for every single color that's going into the woodblock)!
The second, the Ghost Writing special exhibit showed the works of Jaque Fragua, a contemporary artist from New Mexico, focusing on the issues faced by Indigenous communities in the US, incorporating graffiti art and different mediums into his work. The final exhibit, Convergence: Health & Creativity, is a Minnesota-based artist called Anne Labovitz. Her huge, colorful artwork included a piece that encouraged public participation, giving us a prompt to then draw or write something on a colorful piece of paper to add to the wall. Besides the exhibits, the Plains Art Museum offers a lot of classes and workshops to the public, including clay, figure drawing, ceramics, raku firing, oil/acrylic painting, and much more.
Hjemkomst Museum
We walked briefly around Fargo's downtown area (which had some people walking around, but was still rather sleepy), before heading over to the Hjemkomst Center (pronounced YEM-komst), which costs $12 per adult. Blink and you'll miss it, but this 4-minute drive meant we were already in Minnesota! Lisette likes taking photos of the state signs at the border, but the one for Minnesota was inconveniently placed on a highway, and we couldn't stop.
The Hjemkomst is a full-scale replica of a ninth-century Gokstad Viking ship, and it's anchored inside. It was the dream of Minnesotan Robert Asp to build this ship and to sail it to Norway. Robert had no shipbuilding or sailing experience whatsoever (he was a school counselor), so a lot of folks thought he was crazy! While he did captain the ship's maiden voyage, he sadly died before he could realize his dram of sailing to Norway. However, there was a voyage with a group of people, including some of his children, that took 72 days to complete it in 1982. There's a short documentary about the Hjemkomst, as well as a few artifacts around the massive Viking ship.
On the grounds of the Hjemkomst Center, there's another replica, of Norway's 12th century Hopperstad Stave Church, made from basswood, cedar, redwood, and pine. As part of our entrance fee, we got a tour of the replica church, learning about the original church's architecture (the roof's shingles and design had dragon and Viking motifs), the features of the original church (including the communion door for lepers!), and how the replica church is used today (yes, it can be rented out for special events).
The Hjemkomst Center also has additional exhibits about crops in Minnesota, and Scandinavian dress and culture. About 28% of Minnesotans identify as having Scandinavian ancestry, with 43% of Minnesotans reporting multiple ancestry, including Scandinavian, so it makes sense that Robert Asp wanted to sail to Norway, and that the crew had Scandinavians onboard.
Back to Fargo (Briefly)
We made the very quick trip back to Fargo to see a couple of additional sights. The first was a brief stop at the Fargo Mario Wall, a fun and interactive mural created by two local artists based on a scene from Super Mario Bros video game. Yes, we totally pretended to be in the game so we could level up!
While we haven't watched the movie Fargo (maybe Michael has, he can't be sure), we stopped by to see the Fargo Wood Chipper used in the movie. Alongside the wood chipper prop is the Fargo Walk of Fame, which is similar to Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood: a cement block with the signature and hand or foot prints of a famous person. There are a range of famous people how have visited Fargo and made their literal mark, including Metallica, President George W Bush, and many others. Quite a lot of the concrete slabs have unfortunately smashed and the names written weren't always clear, so it was difficult to decipher who the celebrity was that had signed them.
Smashburger Was Not A Hit
Before we left Fargo, we laughed at the Space Aliens Grill and Bar, a quirky, out-of-this-world alien themed restaurant, which seemed like the perfect place to dine as a family with young kids. It was getting late in the day (although we love being able to still be out and about when the sun doesn't set until around 9pm), so we tried Smashburger, a fast food chain we'd not eaten at before.
While there were vegetarian options for Lisette (black bean burger) and they offered sweet potato fries (our fave french fry), the service and the food was lackluster. The black bean burger tasted bland, the sweet potato fries had too much salt, and it was expensive for what it was. We have a few other burger chains we want to try out on the road, and this is one we were happy to try, but we won't go back.
And that was our day in North Dakota! We crossed into the Minnesota and stopped at the agricultural town of Moorhead at a rest stop to enjoy the sunset, and are looking forward to spending more time in state #15 tomorrow.
Route Map
