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Published: March 23rd 2007
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Minot, North Dakota
Just to give you a better visual of where exactly I'll be. And so it begins. I'm at PHL right now killing time before my flight (turns out I was roughly 3 hours early!!!) This was not my original plan. I mean, yes, those of you who know me know full well my tendency towards being early to things, but not quite to THIS extent.
But let me justify.
I was somewhat limited in my options... I had to go from work to PHL in time for a 5:45pm flight. I could have left at 3:00, but doing so would have meant potentially cutting it close as I would be contending with two of the worst road hazards known to man: 1) Rain and B) Rush Hour.
It's been raining all afternoon and since drivers all seem to become idiots in the rain, even with leaving at 2, I got jammed up more than a couple of times coming down on I-95. Not fun. If I had waiting and left at 3, it would have been considerably worse as I would have hit the start of rush hour by the time I got down to the Philly area and I really didn't want to deal with that.
And so I chose the lesser of two potential evils - leaving earlier rather than later and so am stuck waiting which is certainly better than being stressed stuck in traffic behind someone from Delaware.
PHL isn't quite the
worst airport I've ever been to which is to say, it's not LaGuardia. Even so, it's not exactly pleasant either. It's also been years (literally) since I've had a flight from here. Terminal D is drab, dreary, and claustrophobic with its taupe-colored walls, low ceilings, and grey carpet covered in stains from heaven-knows-what. Just so you understand where my standards are at, I typically fly in and out of Newark (EWR) on Continental. EWR is a Continental hub and, as a result, the Continental terminal is actually a pleasant place - open, airy, bright...lots of food and shopping, and more than one Presidents Club lounge equipped with free food, wireless, and alcohol. Sigh.
But enough of that...I'm on my way to North Dakota. Watch out Minot...here I come! Are you ready? Or perhaps the better question is, am I?
You may be saying to yourself, "Why would she chose Minot to begin with?" Well, I'll tell you. To be honest, it's not as though I sat down and wondered where some crazy-remote town was located that I could visit. Nor did I do a lot of research and decide that Minot was the place for me. No, it's much simpler than that. My sister and her husband moved there this year.
I remember when I first met Josh and found out that he was from North Dakota. I recall that my reaction was something like, "Really? I never knew anyone was actually
from North Dakota!" To be fair, I should confess that I never really gave North Dakota much more than a passing thought, however now that I'm getting ready to go, I'm actually pretty excited. It may not be the Inca Trail, but it's still somewhere I've never been and that always carries a level of excitement with it.
The actual process of getting there is not quite so thrilling. As you know, I'm sitting in PHL at the moment, but this is only the first of FOUR airports I will be visiting over the next 8 hours. Yes, that's right four. First I fly to Cleveland where I'll spend another hour or so sitting around before boarding another plane to Minneapolis. I'll have roughly a half-hour there before getting on a final flight to Minot. Phew.
I decided to pay for this trip using credit card points which was a stroke of brilliance on my part since the ticket for this fun-filled itinerary runs just over $500 which I think is totally nuts considering it's not even an intercontinental journey. The less-in-expense-but-high-in-inconvenience option would have been to fly to Minneapolis and then drive out to Minot - a mere 8 hours away. Uh...pass.
Based on my conversations with people, it seems hardly anyone has ever heard of Minot, let me educate you all a little on where I'm spending the next week.
Minot (pronounced "my-not") is located in the north-central part of North Dakota only a couple of hours south of Canada. The official website for Minot refers to itself as a "micropolitan" city with a population that hovers around 37,000.
Wow.
The Magic City, as it's also called, really has an impressive amount going on for its size. I've spent a little time on the
Minot Conventions & Visitors Bureau website just to get an idea of what Minot-ians do for fun... There are some cool-sounding restaurants which I'm excited to possibly try out, however I will do everything in my power to avoid the standard chains there (e.g. Applebees). While I think it's great that they have them (it's more than Anchorage did until the Outback Steakhouse opened in 1998) I still hold fast to the rule that in general when on vacation, one should try to do things that one cannot do at home. Applebees is Applebess is Applebees, but how often can I go to a place that has elk on the menu?
I'm hopefully going to be boarding soon (I think I'm down to my last half-hour), so I need to wrap it up.
In closing, I'll leave you with some little known North Dakota facts...you'll enjoy these:
North Dakota grows more sunflowers than any other state (who knew?)
Milk is the official state beverage (might have thought this would be true of Wisconsin...)
The town of Rugby is the geographical center of North America - there's a 15-foot rock that marks the exact spot (cool)
If you are in a covered wagon, it is legal to shoot an Indian on horseback (wonder when they last reviewed that law?)
In North Dakota it is unlawful to serve beer and pretzels at the same time in any bar or restaurant (bummer)
The parking meter was invented in North Dakota (gee, thanks for that)
If you go dancing in Fargo with your hat on, you can be put in jail (huh?)
It is illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on in North Dakota (good to know)
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