Day Seven - Minnesota Trip

Friday was the final day of our trip where we are actually vacationing, rather than traveling home.   It's also Tim's Birthday!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM! We hit our last State Park (#8) on our way to our final destination - Fargo, ND!  The State Park we visited was Buffalo River State Park.  We really enjoyed this park, it ranked at the top of both Tim and my favorite's list.  This is the first park where there was no lake, just river.  We did a mile walk or so with the dogs on an interpretive trail, learning about the geography of the river.  The other unique feature about this park is the prairie, which we didn't really see too much of in past parks.  It was interesting driving out toward Fargo because we watched the land flatten out right before us!  We spent an hour or more at the park and then hit the road again to North Dakota.  

I have never been this far west by car before, so it was cool to be able to travel to both Minnesota and North Dakota during our trip.  We crossed the Red River of the North into Fargo and drove out to West Fargo (yes, Fargo is actually big enough to have a WEST Fargo!).  Here we went to Bonanzaville!  I guess this whole time I misunderstood what a Bonanza was.  I thought it had something to do with the Wild wild west, but a bonanza is actually a farm that is over 3,000 acres.  We toured a museum where we learned about the history of the bonanzas in Cass County, North Dakota and then toured many of the preserved buildings from that time.  We were the only ones there, so it was pretty cool to have the entire place to ourselves!  We learned a lot about how the railroad was an important part of farming back then.  We also found out that Fargo, ND is named after the Fargo of Wells & Fargo.  The history was remarkable.  I love imagining how life would have been back then.  What a different time from now for folks of all walks of life!  It was interesting to learn some of how women kept the home back then.  We spent several hours at Bonanzaville and were really hungry afterwards so we drove into Fargo headed toward our next destination when we stumbled across a restaurant called Space Aliens, Bar and Grill.  Fargo is indeed a strange place now that I've seen this.  We decided to eat there.  It was like a TGIFriday's with a space theme.  Food was great too!  We left with our bellies full to the Fargo Walk of Fame.  Can you imagine on even exists?  Well, it does, it's on display at the visitors center.  Musicians like Metallica to celebrities like Dr. Ruth have their signatures on the Fargo Walk of Fame.  It's probably as close as we'll get to seeing the Hollywood one, so I  was satisfied :)  

We left to take the dogs down to the city park by the Red River of the North.  We haven't figured out why yet, but the river was severely flooded.  It didn't look like the surrounding neighborhoods were affected, but at least half the park was underwater.  We walked the dogs around for a while and looked at the flooded area.  Since it was a long day and we had about a 2 hour trip back we went on our way.  We left going through Moorhead, MN which is just across the river from Fargo.  That night we had dinner at the rental and watched one of my favorite movies that I haven't seen in a long time - What's Eating Gilbert Grape?  It was a great trip, ending all too soon!