Day 7: 50th State Celebration in Fargo

Some late-night searching for activities last night resulted in us finding tour of at Menoken Farm, just 15 minutes from the campsite. We met with a local farmer who gave us some insight into the farming process. Kids didn’t have many questions, so it was a pretty quick stop before we were on our way for the drive to Fargo.

We have had our first larger hiccup of the trip today. One of the jacks wouldn’t stay retracted, slowly lowering to just a few inches off the road. We tried retracting it many times with no luck. We tried strapping it up, but no luck with that, either (too much force).

Fortunately, it was mainly interstate driving, so we just kept going, thinking we shouldn’t bottom out if there wasn’t road construction. We stopped every few exits to make sure it wasn’t any lower, which slowed us down, but we made it to the campsite in Fargo.

We had a brief stop at a Walmart in Fargo so Rob could have reliable Starlink Internet for some meetings while the boys and Kelly scouted out some potential solutions to our jack problem in the store.

Apparently when your 50th state is North Dakota you can visit the Fargo-Morehead Visitor Center and join the “Best for Last Club”, complete with a free t-shirt and certificate.

Side note: assuming this trip goes as planned, by the end Kelly will have all 50 states, Cooper will be missing only Alaska, and Nicholas will be missing Alaska, Oklahoma, and Arkansas (we did an airplane “roadtrip” when Cooper was one).

They also had the wood chipper from the movie Fargo in the visitor center lobby.

Rob found us a fabulous campsite at the city-run Lindenwood Campground, in Fargo on the Red River, just across from Minnesota. Once we got settled in, we headed out to a fancier dinner at Spaghetti Western, recommended by a friend. It was so yummy and the perfect treat after a pretty stressful drive.

After dinner, the boys explored the campground on their bikes, and then we headed to bed. With an uneven site and broken jacks we flipped the kids around in their beds and Rob and I apparently slowly rolled towards one side of our bed in the night due to the angle.