From Pigs to Paul McCartney

So Dick told me today that I couldn't say it one more time - so I did of course.  "How far will we go today??"  Yes, tonight we're in Fargo, North Dakota - so I can cross one of the big five off of my list - yahoo!  Our hotel's scenery isn't exactly thrilling, but then you can't have amazing scenery from your room five nights in a row...  I had no idea Fargo was so large - more than 100,000 people.  Tomorrow morning we will try to explore a little in the town, but tonight we stayed in so we didn't have to brave the crowds on a Saturday night (and it's nice not to be in the car now and then too).  We couldn't figure out what excitement filled up every room in town (as desperate travelers were unsuccessful trying to check in), but when we tried to get a dinner reservation and couldn't, they explained that "with the concert and all" they were overbooked. So we looked it up and discovered that Sir Paul McCartney is here tonight - I guess he needed to check North Dakota off of his list too.

The scenery as we drive continues to astound us, as today journeying through the "land of 10,000 lakes" we saw that Minnesota is true to its name.  There's also a bit of a river - the Mississippi.    Besides several stops just to look at a lake or two including our picnic lunch at Leech Lake, our only touristy stop was pulling over to get a picture of the statue of Paul Bunyon, in Akeley, MN, which is across the street from Babe's Cut and Curl and the Blue Ox Supermarket.  I don't know these children, but I used this picture for scale.  He was a big guy, apparently.

Oh, and the pigs reference?  I took a lovely, relaxing swim in the pool when we arrived, and there was a very nice late middle-school early high-school aged young man who came in after a bit. He was so eager to engage me in conversation that he was calling across the pool to me.  Turns out, he needed to share that he was in town for the fair - he lived 60 miles away and this was clearly a big event   (we're at the point right now that 60 miles away is when we say yay! we're almost there!....) .  Well , turns out he was showing his pigs and wanted me to know.  I felt so at home - Vermont or North Dakota the important things in life are the same :) .