this one should have been up awhile ago:
north dakota (early/mid feb.) -
is pretty dang cold.
my disclaimer is that i fully realize this is not going to sound very cool or fun, but it was. there is no other explanation. traveling with my married friends ryan and amy, we set on a mission to experience the least visited state (maybe alaska is less, but north dakota must be high up there) in its truest form, in the dead of winter. thankfully we missed the freakishly cold -35 degrees cold spell by one week.
-15 was plenty for me, and if it keeps getting colder, you can't even ice skate on frozen ponds. after a great day at the mall of america and a night of watching a fightless nhl hockey game (yes, slightly disappointed) in minnesota, we tested our own hockey stop skills in the park pond recommended by the sellers of the cheapest possible ice hockey skates at dick's athletics. my vote goes to ryan on the best hockey stop.the real fun of north dokota started with an overnight in fargo. going to say that there isn't much there.
the next day was shiverfest 2007 in devil's lake north dakota. along the way we mistakenly stopped at the second tallest structure in the world. it looked pretty tall but is sadly three feet shorter than the tallest structure in the world, which happens to be located about ten minutes drive away. after the proper visit of the worlds tallest structure (a t.v. tower in the middle of nowhere), we made it to devil's lake only to find out that shiverfest 2007 is more of a loosely connected gathering of mid-winter events rather than an organized town community event. there really wasn't any place to go.
our answer was to take the rental car for a spin on what, from our sound judgment (being from Las Vegas), looked to be a solid devil's lake. we got the car into some pretty good spins with the parking brake. it turns out amy has a fear of walking on frozen water. she's a trooper. i'm pretty sure her fear didn't expect spinning rental cars on frozen water. so maybe it overwhelmed the fear and made it possible. that's my guess.the best part was driving all the way across the lake in our rental car with california plates, stopping at a fishing shack, and asking the two north dakotan men where shiverfest 2007 was. "Well...you have to get back onto the road... And then go around that way. I think you'll see the snowmobile event there."
the rest of the trip continued with meeting the most random cool people, like the kite guy. some guy that makes huge (massively huge) kites and takes them to events all over the country. he let us help him put all the kites away for the day so we got to spend a lot of time with this guy that is following his passion, however strange it may be.
or going to more weird places, like the worlds largest buffalo. it was metal.
definitely the right kind of trip. lots of talking, lots of doing and not doing. and seeing the other parts of life. trips with ryan and amy are always the best.
