Day 16 - July 17, 2020

Amber DeBono
Jul 18, 2020
2 min read

As we headed back east, the land has flattened out and become greener - the temperature (over 90) and humidity have increased substantially since our days in Wyoming, when our only wish was that we had brought sweaters and sweatsuits. We are only a few days away from arriving home

Today we learned that North Dakota is just as bland as you may think it is. The only highlight was the beer I had at Drekker Brewing...the strawberry guava sour beer was so thick, it was like drinking a fruit smoothie. Definitely one of my top 10 beers of all time. Otherwise, I got a bit annoyed in ND - the must-go-to pie place used lard in the crust (so I didn't get any - I'm veggie) and the lefse (a Scandinavian potato crepe) bakery was closed although Google said it would be open today (it's only open 9-1 Tuesday through Thursday!). We did find some frozen at the supermarket (Hornbacher's) and it was delicious after we let it thaw out on the dashboard!

On the way from Fargo to Minneapolis, we stopped in Alexandria, MN for a late lunch/early dinner at The Boulder Taproom. I also had one of my top 10 beers here - Disgruntled Brewery's Tropic-Werks - and a veggie burger with mushrooms, onions and cheese on sourdough - yum! The food and service was excellent. We sat outside, as always, and the staff wore masks. They are even keeping tabs of everyone's name and phone numbers so they can alert customers if they may have encountered anyone who tested positive - their own contact tracing - neat!

The Ramada in West Minneapolis (technically Golden Valley) is nice - and also cost about $50 plus tax. The staff and the customers are wearing masks here. Check in was quick and friendly. We left to check out what Minneapolis might have for desserts and found a Japanese crepe shop. We ordered the banana nutella crepe with a scoop of vanilla mochi. We split it - it was plenty and delicious!

We also drove around downtown hoping to find somewhere to walk, and we learned that Minneapolis isn't really a walkable city. Often, there is only 1 big building on each block and we couldn't find a substantial area with lots of little shops and restaurants, but we did visit some of the stadiums. It was also eerily quiet almost everywhere - probably partly because of COVID and also due to the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. We saw some buildings boarded up with pleas to the rioters not to burn their homes down because there were children inside...a very sad state we are in.

On a more pleasant note, tomorrow we will do some cheesy tourist stuff - Mall of America, Prince's house...etc. Then we are off to Milwaukee!

Fargo, ND: