Day 3.9: Fargo, ND to Dickinson, ND

We woke up and went to breakfast, which we brought back to the room. Arielle saved hers for later and went to the fitness center to use the treadmill. Abe ate first, digested a bit, and then went on the treadmill a bit later. We both got some work done and then packed up. We drove about 15 minutes back into Minnesota to go to a restaurant called Thai Orchid in Moorehead. We met Bev, whose son Eric we had met at Shosh and Eric’s wedding in Florida back in February. She told us about the Jewish community in Fargo and her role as president of the Reform synagogue for the past nineteen years. Abe really enjoyed the mock duck in garlic sauce, though he should have asked to replace the peppers he got the dish without with another vegetable because there wasn’t much besides the protein. Arielle didn’t love her pad thai, but we had a nice experience.

We set out on the road to drive straight west through North Dakota, taking in some nice views along the mostly boring drive. Anyone we had mentioned heading to Medora and Dickinson to told us that we had to go to the Pitchfork Fondue Dinner and the Medora Musical. It turns out that it was opening night for the season, and we opted to go for the dinner and skip the musical. We arrived around 6pm, which meant we would have time to catch the dinner, which was served between 5:30pm and 6:30pm. We had a little trouble buying our tickets at the visitor center but that just meant that we didn’t have to wait in line to get food. Abe excitedly watched as they stuck a number of steaks on a pitchfork and fried them in soybean oil, while Arielle loaded up on all the vegetarian sides. We had been told that only the beans had bacon in them, but the pieces were big so we could pick them out if we wanted to. The steak was delicious, and Arielle enjoyed her sides. The best part was that we got to look out at the incredible scenery while eating. The $30 steak dinner and $15 vegetarian side option was well worth it for the experience, and Arielle certainly got her money’s worth!

We left and went to fill up gas at the oldest-looking gas station we’d ever been to, and it wasn’t that expensive and dispensed real gas!

We turned left into the south section of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, intent on driving the 36-mile loop road as the sun was setting. It turns out part of it was closed, so we instead drove part of the way and turned back, but spent a little bit of time walking up to the Wind Canyon trail that showed us the water (which was brown) and some incredible scenery. There wasn’t much of a sunset, but we enjoyed our trip.

We headed back to the highway and drove about half an hour back east to Dickinson, where we checked in to the AmericInn, which was nicer than we expected. We visited the hot tub, relaxed in the room, and went to bed.

Approximate number of miles covered: 358