Fargo for Broke

Fargo. That way.

We've landed in Fargo, and for the next two weeks we will have a chance to stop moving, bond with family, and let our tans fade enough so that when we finally pull into Michigan, no one will believe that we ever lived in Siberia, let alone Florida. It's good, though. After two and a half weeks on the road, we need this down time to air out the minivan and Google the mysterious new aches and pains that we are experiencing from sitting in a car since May. (Is Driver's Ass really a thing?)

No. Fargo, that way.

South Dakota gives good head.

When we left South Dakota the other morning, we made the choice to abandon the interstate and just kind of work our way in the direction of Bismarck, our last stop before Fargo. And when I say "we" in that last sentence, I of course mean me. Winging it, Cartesian-ally speaking, is something Wife is not particularly fond of. That's a good thing, though. Having been in the wilderness with her father and uncles on more than one occasion, I can personally attest that she comes from a proud lineage of directionally challenged individuals, and just wandering into the back of a dimly lit Starbucks is something that would safely require tagging a few GPS way-points along the way. As a related aside, before we left, she even insisted that we buy an atlas for the trip. I was adamantly opposed to wasting money on something so useless and archaic, and because I know who wears the pants in my house, I stormed straight out and bought one. (For your information, they still sell them at Walmart in the aisle between the butter churns and the leech kits.)

This is why the panoramic setting was created.

Amish, navigational aids notwithstanding, I would like to tell you that our rogue, off-grid trip through the Dakotas was fraught with entertaining tales of misdirection and peril. I'd like to, but I can't. It's farm country. It's Indian reservations. It's flat, it's straight, and it's about as difficult to navigate as a game of Chutes and Ladders. Had it not been for some road construction perfectly coinciding with a perilously taxed bladder, there would have been no drama at all. We made it to Bismarck with plenty of daylight left to find a liquor store, eat yet another steak, and, like Goldilocks, accept not the first room (too occupied), not the second room (too smoke-filled), but the third room (just right) at our budget hotel choice for the evening.