Doesn't Everyone Enjoy Moorhead?

No sense on wasting money on a
stand-alone welcome sign. Just
glue it to the back of that stop sign.

After my last post, an admiring and heartfelt paean to Fargo, I decided to head across the river and give you my thoughts on Moorhead, Minnesota. Don't worry. This won't take long. Moorhead sucks dick.

The minute you cross any of the many bridges to Moorhead from Fargo, things change. Colors get dimmer. Moods darken. Hope, along with anything resembling a fine dining choice, dies. If you Google "interesting things to do in Moorhead," images of the bridges leading back to Fargo appear.

Moorhead's flourishing commerce district

I spent about a week in Moorhead one morning, walking and driving past its resale shops and Taco John outlets. Like many, I root for underdogs, and I was honestly trying to find something likable about Fargo's dirty, retarded, river-sharing little brother. It was not to be. Not since Kansas have I wished so desperately for instant teleportation technology.

If a train derails in Moorhead, would anyone notice.

The downtown is an ill-defined collection of old, new, and what-the-fuck, bisected annoyingly by the same busy railroad that neighboring Fargo seems to incorporate so much more quaintly. Even the city hall, typically a well-maintained point of civic pride in any other community, is a poorly groomed, architectural melanoma, wrapped in a dying, 1970's era retail mall with a perpetually "going out of business" department store as its anchor tenant. Metaphors notwithstanding, I suppose this might be convenient if you want to save some time and get a copy of your birth certificate, discount dish towels, and a warm pretzel from the single-vendor, food court all at once.

Wife, imitating the do not walk sign, in front of the Moorehead City Hall (slash) retail graveyard

You can suck my Mick!

I made one last-ditch effort to find happiness in Moorhead by way of my stomach. After scouring Google Maps for any place that didn't have a drive-thru window or drinks with lids, I finally came upon Mick's Office, which allegedly makes a decent hamburger and, most importantly, sells alcohol. I went in around noon, and there were only two other patrons in the place, sharing a table in the corner. Three employees were visible in the open kitchen behind the bar. Although I was concerned with the absence of a lunchtime crowd, I didn't really have a Plan B, and I rationalized that the generous, staff-to-patron ratio would bode well for customer service. What a dumb ass I can be. After ten minutes drumming my fingers on the empty bar top and being ignored, I turned around and left without so much as a glance from the occupationally masturbating staff.

I quickly found the nearest bridge back to Fargo. I suggest you do the same.

How Low Can You Fargo?

You are one magnificent bison-of-a-bitch!

I’m a walker. It’s just how I’m constructed. I can walk for days. My calves are like bowling balls. If I have visited your town for any length of time, there’s a good chance I’ve thoroughly walked its streets. Personally, I think it is the only way to truly know a city, and I would highly recommend it. (Also, like me, if you are north of 6’ and weigh about as much as a Japanese motorcycle, don't pass up the opportunity to meander through the seedier parts of town. Your size will protect you, and it’s where a city’s true personality expresses itself.)

Gratuitous streetscape shot.

Now that we've planted ourselves in Fargo for a few weeks and Wife is spending some quality time with her sister, I spent the morning logging about 5 miles on a crisscross track through Fargo and its surrounding neighborhoods. I have always liked Fargo. For my money, it’s about the best representation of straight-up heartland you can get. 

No, they don't show Fargo, the movie, on a continuous loop.

I have no idea why ESPN is represented downtown, and I'm too lazy to make a joke about it..

The HoDo makes wonderful Martinis and
Old Fashioneds. If you order a long island
ice tea here, they will probably beat you.
If they don't, I will.

The downtown is an impossibly clean collection of new and old buildings sprawled along one side of the Red River (Moorhead, Minnesota skanks up the right bank). There’s a vibrant bar scene downtown with the requisite number of craft breweries and BBQ joints you would expect from a college-adjacent town still waiting for the next dining trend to emerge. There’s also a refreshing amount of retail that is apparently immune to the typical, traffic-sucking effects of the big box retailers located in the windy flood plains just west of the city proper. 

Where's the Beav?

The area just north of downtown, or NoFa, as I’m sure some clever, hipster-influenced, civic organization will someday dub it, consists of 20-plus blocks of tree-lined streets with original craftsman residences dating back to the 20's combined with just about every other architectural style practiced since. It’s a long stretch of occupied neighborhoods where an updated, and possibly tattooed, Wally and The Beaver wouldn’t be completely out of place engaging in sanitized hi-jinks. 

Even Fargo alleys are clean.

These are not ready-to-be-gentrified neighborhoods waiting for the financial stimulus of prodigal seniors with bloated IRAs. No, these neighborhoods never really needed saving. They’ve simply been chugging along, showing various states of wear and wealth, with their embedded grade schools, Lutheran churches, Masonic lodges, and nearly an infinite number of casseroles surely passed across their shared alleys and fences to neighbors in times of mourning and/or celebration since about the time FDR was president. It’s a slightly distressed, Norman Rockwell painting writ large and updated with Toyota Priuses and GMC SUVs painted over top the original Studebakers and Nash Ramblers. 

North Dakota State University also lies north of Downtown and spills into the area west of NoFa. It’s a typical college campus with manicured grounds, surprisingly well-maintained frat houses, and skinny co-eds out jogging in little more than their underwear. Subsequently, it’s not a bad place to grab a beer at an outside patio bar. 

I do enjoy his salad dressing, but does it really make him saint-worthy?

If there’s a weak spot in this Grain Belt Utopia (besides the winters), it’s West Fargo, and not for the reasons you might guess. West Fargo sprawls south of I-94, southwest of the city, and sprawl is absolutely the appropriate term to use here. A recent side effect of Fargo’s low unemployment, West Fargo is an infinite suburbia rising where continuous quarter-sections of old farmland once produced beets and grain rather than upscale condos, better-funded schools, and mini-mansion, housing developments. And although the new homes (with their clean, Scandinavian influenced aesthetic) are sure pretty to look at, I suspect their existence spells the demise of the Rockwell-esque neighborhoods within the city limits that are agreeably short on square footage but enviably long on character. Being from the Detroit area, I've witnessed what happens to a city that lets its neighborhoods relocate to the suburbs.

Sorry, Beaver.

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.

Megabyte Size Treats

We are in Fargo now, and I have the luxury of time to go through the 1500 or so pictures I have taken and do a little purging. 

They are in no particular order, but enjoy nonetheless.

South Dakota so gets me.

Because the internet needs more pictures of cats.

One hundred years ago there was a guy standing up at a township meeting making a seemingly earnest case for this name. There's a good chance it was my great grandfather, and he was doing it just to be a dick.

This is that college bar that everyone goes to in Boulder, or is it East Lansing, or is it Syracuse, or is it...

Those who can't do, teach.

Pinned to a cork board in a Wyoming gas station.

(I love this!)

It was my idea to get off the interstate and just head in the general direction of Fargo. Even Siri couldn't pinpoint our location any closer than this.

An A$$hole Abroadus

Trick or Treat.

Colorado style.

That also happens to be Wife's birthday.

(not so much the year)

Sanford & Sonasaurus

Hoop Dreams

Musical Interlude

I have absolutely no musical ability but somehow an encyclopedic knowledge of lyrics and melodies. This comes up often in the car. And much like in the car, I'm the only one who gets my references.

Saw this sign at least 50 times. 

Sang "Rocky Raccoon" each and every time. 

Hey, can I have some of your purple berries?

Yes, I've been eating them, 

6-7 weeks now, 

haven't got sick once.

Indiana wants me,

But, Lord, I can't grow back hair.

Five Minutes after this picture was taken, Ted Nugent came along and shot it.

Yep, I knew all of this one too.

Familiar Faces

George enjoying a little "me" time.

Prior to this trip, if you would have asked me where Mt. Rushmore was, I’m reasonably sure I could have placed it within a state or two of its actual location, but to pinpoint it in South Dakota would have been a lucky guess. In general, this seems to be the bane of SoDak: beautiful countryside, impressive monuments, wild west legacy, and yet it would stand by a wall nursing a warm beer, virtually ignored, if ever invited to a party hosted by cool states or Kardashians. It does have a rapidly growing meth problem, so maybe that will finally put it on the map. Time will tell. 

Go Spartans!

Our first night in Rapid City, we were out walking the downtown looking for a place to anesthetize our aching, travel joints. We bumped into a retired couple who were doing the same. If you know my wife, you know she invited them to join us. If you know me, you know I loathe this type of forced interaction. I have to admit, however, Jerry and Diana proved to be delightful dinner guests as well as fellow Floridians with Michigan origin stories. Small world. 

Pull my Finger.

On top of that, we also enjoyed a free show with dinner, as our red-bearded, lawn-gnome looking, MSU fan of a waiter, Jimmy, was absolutely hilarious and could easily give me a run for my money in the rate of F-bombs dropped per conversational minute. All in all, a good start. 

The next day we checked out Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood and some Google-approved, pretentious wine bar & grill in one of the infinite, identical looking tourist towns dotting the Black Hills.  I’m happy to report that none were without merit, but I’ll just elaborate on the big boy. 

Mt. Rushmore, as you might expect, was impressive. I had read more than one online review saying how patriotic it would make you feel. For me, it did not invoke that response. It’s not that I’m incapable of that kind of reaction, either. When I visited Washington DC for the first time, I walked around for a week afterwards with a red, white and blue boner whistling “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Rushmore just didn't affect me that way. 

Rushmore obviously impressed me by its sheer magnitude. I was impressed by the sole sculptor’s audacity and arrogance to swing for the fences on his first time at bat and succeed. I was blown away by the nuts and bolts details of the engineering prowess that kept it on track. 

Oh, now that is way better!

Upon contemplation, however, it also made me sad that we seem to have lost the ability to plan, dream, execute, and, most cripplingly, collaborate on epic projects that showcase how amazing we can be when we sidestep our partisan alliances and allow ourselves the freedom to express ourselves without the consequences of special interest's retaliation or real-time, Twitter persecution. 

Damn, that was a long, fucking sentence. 

I need a Gummy Bear. 

No, I will not entitle this post "Rocky Mountain High"

Nancy Reagan says, "Just Say CO!"

The Colorado state government legalized recreational marijuana some time back, and when we were visiting last week, I was so excited to go to my first dispensary, I may have peed myself a little.  It’s not that I’m a repressed high-on, finally rebelling against the Nancy Reagan brainwashing that was the propaganda of my youth and now looking to retrofit the Honda Odyssey into a billowing, Cheech and Chong, highway bong, either. 

No, it’s not that at all.  

Admittedly, I am no stranger to the firsthand effects of THC (as I also know the nearly orgasmic experience of satisfying an agriculturally induced, 3 a.m. White Castle craving), but since I decided to become an adult (in my early thirties), smoking dope really didn’t fit in with me holding a job, funding a 401(k), or fully appreciating just how disgusting steamed slabs of square, perforated slider-meat actually are, and those dalliances became few and far between. 

So why the excitement then?

Primarily, it has to do with the historical paradigm shift that something like a legal dispensary represents. If you’ve ever bought pot in a state and/or era where and/or when it was illegal, you know the transactional costs alone made it more prohibitive than any enforcement actions dreamed up by local, state, or federal authority. The hours spent trolling arcades and bowling alleys for “that guy” that was always willing to sell; faking friendships with clingy, deep-fried smelling, food service employees simply because they would generally share; and never knowing the quality, price, age, or origin of the crop you finally reaped, makes me wonder what the net attraction really was in the first place. 

To suddenly have all those obstacles removed and know the joy of casual consumer access to competitively priced plants, edibles, infused beverages, and most importantly, commercially consistent quality, is something I could never have dreamed would exist in my lifetime. With the stroke of a pen, enlightened communities have stuffed their tax coffers while simultaneously transforming the potentially dangerous, unregulated, and un-taxed cloak and dagger transactions of my youth to something akin to a Chalupa purchase from the corner Taco Bell. 

Unbelievable. 

Sorry. It seems I’m on a soapbox now. I was honestly just going to blog about my actual visit with the requisite sarcasm and possibly a more timely Seth Rogen reference. I guess I still could, but it’s getting late, and I have some very special Gummy Bears calling my name. But since I’m now in South Dakota, enjoying them is once again criminal.