Trips: Day 3 Eau Claire to Fargo, North Dakota

Left Eau Claire this morning for a relatively short 5 hour drive to Fargo. It was a beautiful cloudless day and perfect for seeing the countryside of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The 250 mile drive through Minnesota was amazing. Minnesota's moniker of "Land of 10,000 Lakes" is for sure an understatement. It seems as though I saw more than that just on the drive up route 94, but that's probably an overstatement. Back in the early 70's I spent 3 months in Minneapolis and I knew there were some lakes, but I never thought there were actually 10,000 lakes. Beautiful!

We arrived in Fargo early afternoon and checked in the Jasper Hotel (jasperfargo.com/). The location is perfect as it's in the dead center of town. The rooms were very nice, modern, and somewhat less than $200 a night. We had a corner room on the 9th floor with a great view.

Our room at the Jasper

It didn't take long to unpack before we did a walkaround town and were amazed by the difference between what we thought Fargo would be and what it actually was. First of all, it's the largest city in North Dakota (125,000) , a young extremally vibrant population, many unique eating establishments, a well preserved downtown with a mix of modern and older well preserved buildings, and sits on the waterfront of the Red river. So after scoping out some of the town we stopped for a libation at the Wurst Bier Hall (wurstfargo.com). They had a huge selection of beers and an interesting noshing menu. An order of potato and onion perogies with a sriracha butter sauce and a bacon flight of four different bacons was just what was needed to take the edge off. Maybe the beers and wine helped too.

Wurst Bier Hall Snack

After the refreshments we walked around town some more, Sylvia went one way and I went another (conversations were getting a little lively). I enjoyed the walk and there's a lot of shops worth exploring, but the highlight of my walk was the bike shop. It was the biggest bike shop I'd ever seen and was in a beautiful old train station. I didn't buy anything, but sure was nice place to hangout.

In the evening we decided to go to the Beer and Fish Company (beerandfishcompany.com). It's a relatively new place in an actual alley (Roberts alley). It was a really cool place with a great selection of fish. I had halibut and walleye, and Sylvia had all walleye. It was excellent and neither of us could eat it all. We took it back to the room and it shall be my breakfast, unless I finish it later tonight.