2006 Bike Ride: Fargo, Yah You Betcha

1.7 miles, 4.5 mph

Highlights: sleeping, taking pictures of plastic bison, visiting the Hjemkomst Museum, eating at Sammy's Pizza

Journal: I've been looking forward to taking a day off in Fargo ever since my body started to ache (about 8 days ago). So even though I'm several days behind my original (unrealistic) schedule, and even though the winds are blowing in the right direction (from the southeast) today, I ended up taking today off and exploring Fargo a bit. In the afternoon, I visited the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretigve Center across the river in neighboring Moorhead, MN. The Hjemkomst ship was modeled after a 9th Century Nordic burial ship, constructed locally in the 1970's, and then sailed across the Atlantic to Norway in 1982. Also at the Center is a replica of a 13th Century Norweigan church, also constructed locally (in the late 1990's). After I had enough of old boats and churches, I picked up my bike at the local bike shop (I had the wheels trued up again) before ordering a half-vegetarian, half-Hawaiian pizza from Sammy's Pizza (rated #2 in the USA by Pizza Of The World). Overall, I quite liked Fargo: the older tree-lined residential neighborhoods to the north of town are quite attractive, the downtown has some interesting attractions (old cinema playing indie movies, Sammy's Pizza) and the city itself feels much smaller than it's population of 91,000 would imply. Unfortunately, the winters really suck in Fargo, so I won't be moving here anytime soon.

Sadly, I will be leaving tomorrow and will therefore be missing out on this weekend's upcoming Potato Days Festival in nearby Barnesville, MN. Events of note include the Potato Salad Cookoff, the Potato Picking Contest, the Potato Sack Fashion Show, the Great French Fry Feed, and of course...my personal favorite...Mashed Potato Wrestling!!!