North Dakota and the Best For Last Club (Ep. 23)

Transcript

Drew (00:15):
Hello everybody and welcome to Travel Fuels Live show. We share stories, tips, and inspiration to help you start living that travel lifestyle. I'm your host, drew Hanish, and I am in Duluth, Minnesota, and here it is May 19th and it's snowing. I just drove through a whole bunch of snowflakes on my way to this beautiful marina area that I can't go out and actually look at because I'd be soaked to the bone and it's cold outside and it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow morning and warming up a bit. So I'm going to go explore some of Duluth tomorrow. I haven't been here since I was a kid, so I don't really remember much of anything about this area except my cousin who I just remember we went to a restaurant where he ate Hamburger Alamo, and that was the strangest thing I had ever heard of, but apparently that was a thing.

(01:12):
So Duluth, I'm coming to see you tomorrow when it warms up a little bit and the sun comes out, but right now, little nasty. So it's perfect time for me to get into doing the podcast with you guys. And I have a special interview that I want to present for you. And if you've been listening the last few weeks, you know that my 50th state, I've conquered 49 of them. Hawaii was number 49. I got there in January, and number 50 is North Dakota. And it's very interesting that when I was doing all of this planning for what kind of trips I was going to take this year, North Dakota is a tough one to figure because it's kind of out of the way for a guy who lives in South Carolina. I have to figure out, there's nothing that you're going through to get there. It's just it's got to be a destination kind of place for me.

(02:08):
And I kept trying to think of what was a destination that I could plan to go see in North Dakota. I mean, I could go try to find film spots from the movie Fargo or something like that. So I got online and I started looking around to see what kind of information I could get. And usually what I'll do when I start scouting out an area is I'll type into Google Instagramable places in North Dakota or in Fargo, and that'll help me find some pictures that might lead me to some things that would be interesting to go look at since I love doing photography. Or I'll go look at TripAdvisor and I'll say, okay, what's popular? What are sites to see when you are in a particular town? Or I'll just do Google searches, maybe look for a Chamber of Commerce. In this particular case, I ran across the Fargo Moorhead Convention Center website.

(03:01):
It's a convention center and visitors bureau in Fargo, North Dakota. And I started looking at the site and I almost fell out of my chair. I was reading this thing called The Best for Last Club, and I thought, best for last, wait a second, I got to read about this and call it serendipity or whatever. I mean, I was supposed to go to North Dakota in 2011, had it all planned out, was going to go see the Roger Meris Museum in Fargo. I was doing a Midwest baseball tour. It was perfect for me. Go see a bunch of baseball games across the Midwest and then go check out the Roger Maris Museum because he played his high school ball in that area in Fargo. And tornadoes were coming through the morning that I woke up and was planning on going through. So I had to change my plans all around, frustrating.

(03:58):
And I ended up not going to North Dakota and now all of a sudden it was going to end up being my last state. And here the Visitor Center had this best for Last club. So I had to find out more information about it, first of all, because I wanted to know what it was all about, but also kind of get the thought process behind it. What state says, don't come here, don't come here until it's your last state. And then that way you can get certification, you can become a member of the club, that sort of thing. So I reached out to Danny Riley, she's the visitor experience manager there, and I asked her if she would be fine coming on the podcast, and she said, absolutely. So I'm going to play for you my interview with her that I did almost a week ago.

(04:51):
And then we will play a little bit of my swearing in ceremony as well. And then afterwards, I'm going to fill you in a little bit on what happened during my three days in the Ruff Ryer state, I actually had to go look up what their state a, it's not really a state slogan I guess, but it's more of just a name, a secondary name, like Michigan is the Great Lake state and South Carolina is the Palmetto State, and the Lone Star state is Texas and so on and so forth. So ruff riders state, which course, if you know anything about American history, that was Teddy Roosevelt was a rough rider, and his rough riders went to Cuba and so on and so forth. So history for another day. So anyway, that's, and you'll see Teddy Roosevelt's stuff all across the state. We'll get a little bit into that.

(05:50):
I also will tell you on the website where you'll be able to go and look at some of the pictures and some of the, that I went because I was pleasantly surprised at what I found in North Dakota. And I'm going to give you a couple of the places that I went, things that I think are worthy of you, not neglecting North Dakota, but definitely putting it on your radar as a place that you should see sometime in your life. So we'll get to that in just a little while, but right now, let's get into our interview. It was a fun little discussion and I think you're going to enjoy this. This is my talk with Danny Riley from the Fargo Moorhead Visitors Bureau. Alright, Danny, I want to say welcome and actually it's you that should be saying welcome, right? I'm in North Dakota now. Finally.

Danni (06:42):
Yep. Welcome to your last state.

Drew (06:44):
That's awesome. It's exciting. It's funny because when I crossed the border last night, it was almost a melancholy feeling. It's like for years I've been telling people I got to get to North Dakota, I got to get to North Dakota, and it's been something I could trumpet and say I'm almost to my 50th state. And then I was thinking, I'm not going to be able to say that anymore.

Danni (07:06):
Now what are you going to do? It's like the

Drew (07:08):
Whole thing of North Dakota is going to come out of my whole vernacular. I don't know what to do. So I'm here, and so far I got a chance to kind of wander around downtown Fargo this morning and see a little bit about that. And so I thought it'd be fun to talk with you guys, not only about me now doing a trip across North Dakota and trying to figure out what I'm going to do while I'm here, but also talk about your best for last program that you do. What we call it a program. We call it a,

Danni (07:40):
It's a club. A club. Yeah, it's a club. Okay.

Drew (07:43):
Yeah. And this is, I'm apparently not the only person who for some reason has North Dakota as their last date.

Danni (07:52):
So the club started about five years ago. It's called the Best for Last Club, and basically it's for anyone who saves North Dakota for last. So we're up to about, we're almost to 2,500 members. Wow. And yeah, it's fun. I mean, you get a t-shirt and a certificate and we take your picture, kind of make a big deal about it. So it's fun. We have fun with it. Kind of just encourage people to come and take your picture and get to tell you about all the fun things to do in Fargo as well. Yeah.

Drew (08:33):
So where did this idea come about? How long have you been doing this?

Danni (08:38):
So the travel ambassadors who work at the Visitor center here, they were finding that a lot of people were coming in and saying, this is my last state. And it was kind of like, oh, that's great, congratulations, but wanted to do something more. And so they kind of came together with our marketing department and came up with the Best for Last Club. And so yeah, that's kind of how it came about. And now we get some calls. I was there in 1999 and North Dakota was my last state. Can I get a T-shirt? And so we do send them out the t-shirts and date the certificates to when they actually got into North Dakota and kind of encourage them to come back and see how much it's changed since then. So yeah, that's kind of where it started.

Drew (09:29):
So if somebody was coming from, let's say I have a trip later this year and I'm going to Montana, and I could have snuck in by going to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and come in the other side of the state. What do I do then?

Danni (09:43):
So as much as we encourage you to come to Fargo where we want you to come visit, if you do that and you call us, we will send you the T-shirt. Okay. All right. I mean, it's marketing and if they're wearing the T-shirt somewhere else, that's better for us than not. So

Drew (10:03):
Why does North, see, I grew up in North Carolina, so it's the first thing out of my head when I say north. So why is North Dakota, do you think, the last place that people usually end up going?

Danni (10:17):
Yeah, so we hear a lot just that it's kind of out of the way. It's not really on the way too much. You can go through South Dakota and it saves you some time, but we have a lot to offer here in North Dakota too. Fargo itself is a growing city. There's a lot to do here, a lot of nightlife and stuff that you don't expect out of a North Dakota city. And then of course, Theodore Roosevelt National Park. So there is a lot to do here, A lot to see. But yeah, I think everyone knows about Mount Rushmore, so they choose to go maybe through South Dakota if they're going across the country. So I think that's kind of why it's just a little out of the way.

Drew (11:05):
You just got stuck in a spot that nobody can. Alright, so I'm going to pull a little quiz on you right now, because being from North Carolina and then living in South Carolina for some time, and then I hear national people, or I hear on the news giving the wrong state for a location, and whenever I talk to somebody about, I'm going to North Dakota, they're like, oh, so you're going to Mount Rushmore? I'm like, no, that's not, no,

Danni (11:35):
Wrong Dakota.

Drew (11:37):
So then they're like, well, the Corn Palace, is that, no, no, the corn powder still not right. Wall drug. No, that's not there. So I thought it'd be interesting because I was going to ask some people back in North Carolina tell me what is in North Dakota and see if they could figure that. So how about we turn the tables here and we say, okay, is it in North Carolina or South Carolina?

Danni (12:06):
Okay, I can try.

Drew (12:07):
Okay, here we go. Myrtle Beach,

Danni (12:10):
North Carolina. Nope, it's in South Carolina.

Drew (12:13):
South Carolina. You got it. You got it on the same. Okay. The Carolina Hurricanes hockey team plays in Raleigh, which is in

Danni (12:19):
North Carolina.

Drew (12:20):
Okay, excellent. You got that? Yep. The Carolina Panthers play in Charlotte. Where is Charlotte? Charlotte

Danni (12:27):
Is in North Carolina.

Drew (12:28):
It is in North Carolina. Okay. I've heard national broadcasters when the Panthers first started playing, saying Charlotte, South Carolina.

Danni (12:35):
South Carolina. Oh

Drew (12:36):
Goodness. Alright. Now this is a tricky one that even people who live in the Carolinas may not be able to answer. During the American Revolutionary War. One of the turning point battles was at King's Mountain. Do you know which state King's Mountain is in?

Danni (12:51):
I'm going to guess.

Drew (12:53):
Okay.

Danni (12:54):
South Carolina

Drew (12:55):
And you would be right. Okay. But most everybody will probably get it wrong because when you're driving up I 85, the exit is in North Carolina and you drive south over the border to get to it.

Danni (13:06):
Okay, there you go.

Drew (13:07):
There you

Danni (13:07):
Go. It was a total guess. Yes.

Drew (13:09):
So give me something. North Dakota, South Dakota, let's see if I can figure out which one it is.

Danni (13:15):
Okay. Lake aka Woo. It's a tough one.

Drew (13:22):
Yeah. Is it something I want to visit? Yeah. Okay. Yep. All right. North Dakota.

Danni (13:29):
Yep. You're right. Maybe that's cheating. Let's see. Sioux Falls.

Drew (13:35):
Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Danni (13:37):
Okay. Yep. Custer National Park.

Drew (13:48):
Park. I'm going to say South Dakota.

Danni (13:50):
Yeah, it's the Black Hills area. Minot.

Drew (13:56):
Minot. I'm going there tomorrow, so I know that is North Dakota. Yes, yes.

Danni (14:04):
Let's see. Williston.

Drew (14:07):
Williston. I've heard of Williston, I don't know. It's there. North Dakota.

Danni (14:13):
Yep. That's where the oil, if you heard about all the oil,

Drew (14:17):
The

Danni (14:17):
Fracking, that was kind of one of the main hubs for that.

Drew (14:21):
And whereabouts is that?

Danni (14:22):
That is in the northwest area of North Dakota.

Drew (14:27):
So while I'm driving up to Regina, because I'm actually doing my last two Canadian provinces on this trip also. Okay, awesome.

Danni (14:37):
Yeah, you could go through Willison. You could also just go north at Minot. Either way. All

Drew (14:43):
Right. Yeah, so I guess sort of successful there. So let's talk about some of the stuff that's in North Dakota. If somebody's coming here, what other places would you suggest would be interesting to go to?

Danni (14:58):
Yeah, so obviously Fargo has a lot here, especially the downtown area is really fun. We have the North Dakota State University bison. They've won seven national titles,

Drew (15:12):
Seven.

Danni (15:13):
Wow. So those games are really fun. They tailgate rain, snow, or shine. So that's

Drew (15:19):
Pretty fun. That's where Carson Wentz came from.

Danni (15:21):
That's where Carson Wentz came from. So those are all fun things to do here, and we can get into more of that later maybe. Okay. And then, so traveling West, you'll go through Jamestown would be the first kind of big stop that you could make. And that has the world's largest buffalo and a Buffalo museum. So you can go and stand next to this huge buffalo and take a picture. They also have white albino buffalo there that you can see, which are really important to the Native American culture. So they have a few there too as well. And then keep going, you end up in Bismarck, which is where our capital is. So there's the Capitol building. They have a heritage center, which it's free to go through, and it has a lot of history about Lewis and Clark and how they came here, dinosaurs, all that kind of stuff. Geological areas of North Dakota.

Drew (16:26):
And I was going to say, there's a lot of Lewis and Clark stuff between North and South Dakota, I think has the Saia Memorial and North Dakota is a whole drive between Minot and Bismarck.

Danni (16:42):
So just north of Bismarck. On your way to Minot, you could stop at the Lewis and Clark interpretive center. And that's actually right where they stayed their first winter. So that's kind of why North Dakota was important to them. And so that is pretty cool. You can see kind of their journey and all of that there. And then, let's see. So west of Bismarck, there is Salem Sioux, which is the world's largest Holstein cow. And then she's up on a hill, which is, you can see all of North Dakota up there, which

Drew (17:20):
Is really nice. I was going to say, you're dispelling a myth that there are no hills in

Danni (17:24):
North Dakota. No, there's a hill.

Drew (17:28):
You don't do Michigan and call it a mountain. Yeah,

Danni (17:31):
No,

(17:32):
I wouldn't go on a mountain. Yeah. So in August, we have one of the biggest sunflower, we produce a lot of sunflower seeds here, so if you go up and see Salem Sioux, you can see all the sunflowers out from there, and it's really pretty. And then finally, there's Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the North Dakota Bad land. So different from South Dakota. They're a lot greener bluffs, less large hills. They're kind of bluffs. And so it's really pretty out there. The cabin is the visitor center that Theore Roosevelt actually ranched in. Oh, okay. They have the Medora musical, which is every night of the summer, and it has a country theme sort of. And then they always bring out someone that looks like Theodore Roosevelt on a horse, and it's really pretty. It's in an amphitheater overlooking all the bad lands. So that's a really, really fun

Drew (18:39):
Too. And you mentioned summer. When is summer in North Dakota?

Danni (18:45):
It depends on the year. It really does. Sometimes right now it'll be really hot, but obviously it's not the best weather today. I mean, it might get up to

Drew (18:55):
The stomach here. It's not too bad. I mean, it's cooler than where I'm from, but sure

Danni (19:01):
It works. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, summer usually, I would say by June it's summer

Drew (19:08):
And then it's fall when? In August?

Danni (19:11):
No, probably middle of September.

Drew (19:13):
Middle of September. Okay. Yeah.

Danni (19:14):
All right. Both our spring and our falls are very short, whether it's long winters, usually long winters or long summers. It just depends on the year.

Drew (19:25):
I was going to say the other reason why I hadn't come to North Dakota is because the last time I was telling you before the podcast that I went to Minneapolis before this, and I've been to Target field twice, and I was doing a Midwest baseball tour, and I was going to go to the Roger Marris Museum, and this was in 2012. And the day that I was going to head up there, tornadoes, I can't go. And it's funny because last night I went to my hotel here in Fargo and I was telling the woman at the front desk, she's from Minnesota, and I said, yeah, I tried to get here back in 2012, but there were tornadoes coming through. She said, ah, the weather strikes again. Yes.

Danni (20:10):
That's a pretty normal story around here, whether it's snow or tornadoes, not a huge thing that happens. But yeah, I suppose bad luck maybe.

Drew (20:23):
So best for last, when I was in Minneapolis, I, and there must be a nice little crossing of people from North Dakota and Minnesota because I was in a drugstore getting some suntan lotion. And I started talking to a guy and he said, oh, where are you headed to? And I said, I'm going to North Dakota. And he said, oh, you got to go see the buffalo, the big 30 foot buffalo. I said, yes, it's on my agenda. I'm going through there. And he said, I said, yeah, and it's my 50th state. And he said, oh, you're saving the best for last. Right. Oh, there you go. So yeah, it's a theme. Yeah. And then I heard yesterday at the hotel, the woman said, oh, 50th state. I hear that a lot. So either your promotion's really working or people are just

Danni (21:17):
Using what everyone's already saying, I guess.

Drew (21:19):
Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit again about the club. You're going to take me actually through the ceremony.

Danni (21:29):
Yes.

Drew (21:30):
And so tell me who's the youngest person, and you probably don't know exact ages, but I would think that most of the people who are coming through here are probably in their fifties or sixties or seventies.

Danni (21:45):
Yeah, so we were actually just talking about this. Our youngest person to ever join the club was nine and they were homeschooled and their family just took them across the state. So they had five kids or something, and he was nine, so that's the youngest one. And then our oldest was 99, and he came to here I think last year or maybe two years ago. But I would say the retirement age, about 65 to 70 is probably where most of them, that's how old they are. So when they have time to travel and see everything.

Drew (22:31):
I also noticed you have a walk of fame outside, so who are some, I saw Def Leppard and Metallica stuck out to me. I've seen both of them and gone through.

Danni (22:40):
But, so yeah, we have the W of Fame, which is hand prints of famous people who come to North Dakota. We have Def Leopard and Metallica.

Drew (22:53):
We've got a lot of country people I saw, yeah,

Danni (22:55):
I through think Garth Brooks is out there, I think Billy Ray Cyrus. Yeah. We haven't had a new one since the Abbott Brothers, which was about five years ago. It's just a little bit tougher to get celebrities to come, and not that they're not coming here just to come and do the ham prints. So

Drew (23:16):
When they're coming here, are they actually performing here or are they just down their way through?

Danni (23:19):
Yeah, so most of them are performing. We had pink here last weekend. We didn't get her hand prints

Drew (23:28):
Unfortunately.

Danni (23:29):
But yeah. And then Kelsey Baller Ballerini was here this last weekend too. But yeah, I think most of them were performing. We do have Bill Gates, he just was here.

Drew (23:44):
Yeah. And what was he for coming here for?

Danni (23:47):
Well, we have Doug, our governor. He owned a company called Great Plain Software, and it sold to Microsoft. And so that was what he was here. So was I don't know how long ago, but probably 15 years ago or so.

Drew (24:03):
Yeah, I wish I could have tapped him on the shoulder while he was here because as I was driving up from Minneapolis, they have the new billboards now that are all electronically driven and it had a Windows error on it. Oh, that's not a good advertisement

Danni (24:21):
For

Drew (24:22):
Windows, unfortunately. Oh, man. Alright, well let's talk a little bit about Fargo itself. And so this is the Visit Fargo and Morehead Visitor Center. And so Fargo talk about when I walked around downtown this morning, I noticed a lot of late 19th century, early 20th century buildings down there. I loved the fact that as I was walking down Broadway, you could actually read little bits about the history on those posts that you have down there. And then you had some art as well on some very interesting features around town. Can you tell a little bit about that?

Danni (25:06):
Yeah, so we have a very active arts partnership here. A lot of artists, a lot of great murals have popped up in the past couple years. And then like you said, they just put art wraps on electrical boxes and they have little history about who made 'em and what that's all about. So those are really cool. Addition to our downtown as well, we have the Fargo Theater down there, which is a 1920s art deco theater. And it has the marquee that it's the most photographed spot in the town. So everyone goes down there to take their prom pictures or wedding photos, that kind of thing. And then, yeah, I mean we just have a lot of Our Plains Art Museum is a free art museum in the downtown area, and that's the largest art museum between Minneapolis and Seattle Accredited art museum. And they do a lot of Native American or local art, so that's pretty cool down there as well. And then outside of downtown, we have the island park. We have a lot of parks in the area as well. And then we have a lot of parks along the river, which separates North Dakota and Minnesota. And in Lindenwood Park, which is right along the river, there's actually a pedestrian bridge that you can cross over. So you can be in North Dakota and Minnesota at the same

Drew (26:41):
Time,

Danni (26:42):
Which is kind of fun.

Drew (26:43):
I did that over the first Avenue Bridge, which I was expecting more fanfare. There wasn't a welcome sign. I did see City Hall. Yeah,

Danni (26:51):
City

Drew (26:51):
Hall, yeah.

Danni (26:53):
They just built that city hall along the river. They ended up putting a diversion down there. The river does flood, since it's a newer river, it hasn't been able to kind of carve its way in there yet, so it does flood. So once they put the big dike there, then they're able to build the city hall.

Drew (27:15):
And I saw a train depot. I saw two train depots. One is a bicycle shop. Yes. Was that once a train depot or did they just build it to look that way?

Danni (27:26):
It was a train depot. Yep. There was one there. And then there's one on Main Avenue, which is now our park district. And I don't know if you saw the greetings from Fargo Main I there too.

Drew (27:37):
Yep. Got a picture in front of it.

Danni (27:38):
Yeah, they're kind of making all of that a little prettier and nicer down there. So

Drew (27:45):
Yeah. So how long have you been here?

Danni (27:47):
I've lived here for about four years, and I started at the C B B part-time as a travel ambassador four years ago.

Drew (27:56):
Okay. Yeah. When was the first time you came to Fargo?

Danni (28:00):
Well, it's kind of cheating. I grew up in the Twin Cities, but my family's from here, so I probably was in Fargo close after I was born. See family and whatnot.

Drew (28:13):
So you've seen changes. What are the big changes that you've seen here?

Danni (28:17):
Yeah, so it's funny, I've lived here for four years and I already sound like a grandma driving around saying, oh, this wasn't here when I moved here, and that kind of thing. But yeah, I mean the downtown, my parents moved back here about 10 years ago, and since then it's like there's so much to do down there. It's just grown enormously. Our West Fargo, which is the city obviously to the west of Fargo, is the fastest growing city and the fifth largest city in North Dakota now. And so it just keeps growing. I mean, there's new developments down there all the time, new restaurants popping up almost daily it feels like. Yeah. So a lot of growth.

Drew (29:05):
Definitely our Broadway and main Avenue, the two main strips through town that people would want to walk along or

Danni (29:13):
Yeah, so that's definitely our downtown area is Broadway. And then Maine is kind of growing up as well. There's a lot of new restaurants, tap rooms, breweries. We have seven, or we have eight breweries and nine different locations. So a couple double location breweries newly downtown, it's called Pixeled Brewery, and it's like video games and a brewery, so that's kind of fun. And then across the street is a Cery Wild Cery, which is built in an old horse stable. So that's pretty cool. Okay, now

Drew (29:55):
We're enticing everybody to show up, but your promotion kind of says don't show up until you've done everywhere else. How does that work? I mean, it probably feels a little awkward.

Danni (30:09):
So I mean, we keep finding that a lot of people are already saving North Dakota for one of the last states, so it's kind of like, do save us for last and then we can kind of celebrate with you. It's a little more fun if you do that. So yeah, I mean it's a little weird like don't come now, wait till,

Drew (30:34):
Yeah,

Danni (30:35):
Go to Hawaii first

Drew (30:36):
And hopefully they don't get stuck. I do waiting for 10 years with two states left on there. I was trying to figure out how I could fly through Fargo to get to Hawaii, but it's a little tough to knock my last two off, but okay. So the last question is, because talked about this on social media a little bit amongst other travelers, what constitutes actually having been to a state? How do you knock it off your list? Can you just land in the airport and then go to the next, or, I've probably flown over North Dakota many times in the air, but not stopped here.

Danni (31:16):
Yeah. So we leave that up to the visitor's discretion. I personally would say you have to at least do something in the state, so that would be my goal. But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that if you landed had a layover in Dallas that you'd been to Texas, but I mean, some people might say that and that's fine with us.

Drew (31:44):
Yeah, it's kind of like I wrote down all 50 states and I tried to figure out what activity that I did in each state to justify it. And there are interesting states like Alabama that I've probably been through Alabama 50 times, I've slept in Alabama, I've never actually gone to Alabama to do something,

Danni (32:08):
Doing something there. It's

Drew (32:09):
Always driving through. So it's like part of me goes, I need to give a little bit more time to that. I'll probably have done more in North Dakota than I've done in Alabama by the time I'm done with this. And I live two states away. Yes.

Danni (32:22):
Yeah, that's

Drew (32:23):
Crazy.

Danni (32:24):
Yeah, we did have, on Friday we had a couple join the Best for Last Club, and they needed, their criteria was to stay overnight in each state. And when they booked their trip here, they accidentally booked a room in Moorhead, which is in Minnesota. So they had to wait an extra day to come over and join my club because that was their criteria. So yeah. But yeah, so it's up to you guys to decide what 50 means to you.

Drew (33:00):
Awesome. Well, I am ready to get initiated into the club and make this thing official. Okay,

Danni (33:08):
Great. All excellent. Let's do it. Well, great.

Drew (33:11):
And thanks so much for the interview time as well. So I'll record us separately going through and doing that.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Alright, so it is your 50th state.

Drew (33:22):
What's that? North Dakota is your 50th state? 50? This is number 50. I am. Congratulations. I've been saving it for 10 years. Wow.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Turn.

Drew (33:31):
Here I am.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
So you run a sign in right there all, and we'll get you a certificate.

Drew (33:40):
This feels so official.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
It is official.

Drew (33:43):
I like it. It's the

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Real thing

Drew (33:45):
Now. And we were doing our podcast episode and we didn't talk once about the wood chipper, so we're going to have to go over and we have to go over and over and do the video of the wood chipper. Chipper. Yes.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
Okay. What size T-shirt do you wear?

Drew (33:58):
Extra large.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Extra large.

Drew (34:00):
How long did it take for me to, I'm going to

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Grab that T-shirt.

Drew (34:03):
Here we go. So how long? 51 years. Favorite thing about North Dakota? I just got here that it's my 50th state. I had say Fargo downtown was very nice. And there you go.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
And now we have a

Drew (34:23):
T-shirt. Look at that. Excellent.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
That is a pretty nice

Drew (34:28):
T-shirt. Nice. Look at that. I am official. All right.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
And you said you would take your photo.

Drew (34:35):
Okay,

Speaker 3 (34:37):
There's your certificate.

Drew (34:38):
Excellent. And your

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Sticker. And we take it over with our best for last sign over there and I will get my iPad and we'll take it right over by

Drew (34:49):
That sign. Excellent. And let's go visit the wood chipper. How about that? So the one thing that I guess, would you say this is what Fargo is probably most famous for?

Speaker 4 (35:01):
Yes,

Drew (35:02):
Probably. Nice. I was a little worried it might be an actual real foot, but it seems to be fine. And then there's one out front. So the one out front is a, we call it the stunt double. Okay. Was it used in the movie?

Speaker 3 (35:19):
No, this one was,

Danni (35:21):
That one was created

Speaker 4 (35:22):
Before we got the

Drew (35:24):
Real one. Okay. Alright. And did you guys say do this movie in Fargo so that we have something to talk about at the visitor center? No, that's excellent. All right, cool.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
And then we'll take your photo over

Drew (35:40):
Over here. All right. See man, and I guess we'll get a little closeup there of my certification. Now everyone will know I've made it through all 50. See, I bet they don't do this in Saskatchewan at all.

Speaker 5 (36:00):
Okay, sweet.

Drew (36:01):
So the other question is what do you think most people's 49th state is

Speaker 5 (36:10):
Hawaii, Alaska.

Drew (36:12):
Okay. All right. I was lucky I got Alaska out of the way early on.

Speaker 5 (36:16):
One of those two.

Drew (36:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Hawaii was 49 for me. Wow. So you that Yeah, I tend to have to go portrait

Speaker 5 (36:29):
There. We got

Drew (36:30):
Something about this tall frame I have. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (36:38):
Okay.

Drew (36:39):
Alright. Excellent.

Speaker 5 (36:41):
Good. So it was 10 years ago that you went to Hawaii,

Drew (36:43):
Or No, 10 years

Speaker 5 (36:45):
Between,

Drew (36:46):
Actually, I said I'm going to knock 'em both out in the same year. So in January I went to Hawaii and here I am in May doing this

Speaker 5 (36:58):
Up. Congratulations again.

Drew (37:01):
Thank you. Thank you so much. Well that was a lot of fun and definitely something that's a memory that I'll take with me for a lifetime from Fargo. So now I am an official member of that Fargo Morehead Best for last club. And if you want more information on that, I've gone ahead and put on the show notes page links to their website, and also some information about some of the other places that Danny mentioned that I'm not mentioning in my blog post that I did on North Dakota. And lemme tell you a little bit about that blog post. If you go to travel fuels life.com/ North Dakota, you're going to find pictures from my three-day trip across the state of North Dakota. And I'm telling you there's some really cool places. So the first picture you're going to see is a picture of the visitor center where they have a painted buffalo that you can check out.

(37:56):
Actually bison, we call them buffalo, but there's actually no buffalo in the United States or in North America. They are actually bison if you want to get technical about it. But you'll hear buffalo all over the place. So you'll see that, you'll see the wood chipper inside of the visitor center, but also on the outside the stunt double, which you'll see in the background on that picture and the sign for the walk of fame. You'll also see me and Danny disposing of the evidence with the wood chipper, and you'll see a foot there. I promise you it's not a real foot that we're pushing down into the wood chipper, but cool. You get to get a picture taken there in front of the Fargo artwork and pushing the foot down with a piece of firewood. So that's definitely a memorable picture you can take when you get there.

(38:47):
But as I said, that's not the only thing in North Dakota. And you're going to find out going through the rest of this page, some of the other stuff such as I've got some downtown pictures showing you the theater downtown and one of those utility boxes I was talking about that has some of the artwork on it. And I actually found a really cool bike rack down there too, that it's a series of bike racks that I think you'll find interesting photos from the Roger Marris Museum, which that is, it's in a shopping center, so it seems like an odd place for a museum. But whether the shopping center actually has the museum open or not open, you can still see a whole bunch of memorabilia on the outside. I got a picture with the world's largest buffalo. I have a picture of white cloud who is the albino buffalo that they feature there.

(39:43):
And you can actually, I didn't take a picture because he was so far away, but you can actually go back and look over the field where the albino bison is. And so that's a really cool experience as well. He was down by the river, so I didn't really get to see an up close, but they do have binoculars there for you to take a look. Also, I went to Minot, and Minot is a place that has a Scandinavian heritage park and it's just a little city park and it has all sorts of, it has buildings, it has statues, there's a statue of Leaf Erickson and of hands, Christian Anderson and a whole lot of other stuff in there. There's a Gustaf church there and a windmill and a doll horse. So lots of stuff there to see as well. Little artwork in downtown Minot that I've also taken a picture of.

(40:41):
And also this theory that North Dakota is flat. It's not flat. Saskatchewan was flat. It was very flat. I couldn't believe how flat it was, but North Dakota is all lakes and rolling hills and it was beautiful. I enjoyed the drive, especially sunrise driving between Minot and Bismarck as I was looking for a bunch of that Lewis and Clark stuff. And so there's a Audubon National Wildlife Refuge out there, and I took a picture of Wally, the Walleye in Garrison, North Dakota. You'll get to find out about that. And Garrison Dam and Fort Clark, which actually I didn't see a whole lot of information about that. It's one of those places you kind of have to walk out to and your imagination on because there's really no, I mean, it would be hard to preserve a teepee, I'm sure, or any of the Indian dwellings that were out there.

(41:44):
But there's enough information on the signposts out there to get you a feel of what it was like to be at Fort Clark, which was a major trading post and also was a place where they did a lot of fur trade out of there. And then it was also the home for the Indians for hundreds of years before that. And then some photos and information from the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. And there's a couple of Indian villages you can check out on the way. And Fort Abraham Lincoln, which has the Lan Indian Village, but is also, it was the home of the seventh Calvary. So anybody who is interested in what happened during the little big horn incident, you can actually see photos of some of the people who were a part of that massacre, not the actual massacre. You're not seeing their dead bodies, but you are seeing the photos of them that were taken before they died years or so before.

(42:50):
A lot of posed pictures and then some histories for each of them. So that was pretty cool. And then Bismarck walked around and there's some street artwork there as well in the Bismarck alley art that you can check out. And then down by the Heritage Center, there's some statues out there, one of Saka Joa, another of a bison that you can check out. And then I did actually pass by Salem Sioux, the world's largest Holstein cow, and it was sunrise and she was just peering at me. So I said, okay, I'll go up there and check it out. And one other thing we didn't really talk about was the Enchanted Highway, which is between Bismarck and Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and that was cool. It's all scrap metal that they have turned into art, and you turn down exit 72 and you just ride along and they just stand out as you're driving along.

(43:45):
It's hard to miss because you'll see right when you get off of the freeway, you'll see one right there and then you just drive down this road for 32 miles and see a variety of artwork. And then the last place that I went to was Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And I'm telling you this right now, if you want to see a hidden gem of the National Park System, it's Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I've been to the Badlands in South Dakota and they're beautiful and it's just land formations that take your breath away. But there is something about Theodore Roosevelt National Parks, Badlands, you see, they're green as she said, and it's just so different, but it's beautiful. And they go on and on and on. There's actually two major sections, the north unit and the south unit, and I tell a little bit about each of those and show you some pictures from in there.

(44:47):
And then I saw bison I'd round a corner and there bison just hanging out like 20 of 'em. And then go a little bit further down the road and there's a prairie dog town and in the prairie dog towns, you can hear all the prairie dogs barking and popping up out of their little holes in the ground and they come right up to the road so you can get some pretty good access to the prairie dogs when you're out there. So that was amazing. Then I drove north of there about an hour and a half drive to get to the north unit and drove through there. And there's just more spectacular scenery. And the only thing that made me sad was that at the very end of the drive, there was a fire out there at some point. And so all of a sudden you go from this beautiful green to just black charred, and that's kind of sad, but that's just the last couple of miles of that drive.

(45:45):
The rest of the drive is absolutely spectacular and worth the time to go see. So my mind's been changed on North Dakota. I'm telling you, probably the only boring drive I had was between Jamestown to Minot. She had to take a back road to get there, still rolling hills, but more farms. And so it was a little bit, that was a two hour drive that I kept going, boy, I'd love to get through this as quick as possible. But even driving up by the Williston oil fields and all that through there, there's still, of course there's the curiosity of seeing all the oil wells that are out there working and seeing all the pop-up towns that are there. We think of ghost towns now from the 18 hundreds where they built structures. The ghost towns of the future probably are going to be abandoned trailers, I guess because they were motels there that were offering rooms for $25 a night and you would be staying in a trailer.

(46:49):
So that's a fascinating place to kind of drive through and see. And there's a little more Lewis and Clark stuff that goes on through there. I had a great time in North Dakota if you couldn't tell. And so my mind has changed completely about it. It would not rank as my 50th state, even though it was my last state to go to. So check all that stuff out there. Go to travel fuels life.com/ North Dakota and check out that blog post and see some of those pictures that I took. And then I also did another post where I wanted to count my 50 states and kind of talk about what my favorite memory or favorite thing was in that particular state. So you can find that@travelfuelslife.com slash 50 states, and you'll see that there are a couple states in there where I kind of used them as pass through states.

(47:40):
So I'm going to give a little more effort to those states in the future, but I have been through them enough that I feel like I can count them as states. I didn't just go to the airport and then fly out. It was I drove in, I stayed there at least a night, that sort of thing. So check all that out. I hope you enjoyed this episode and man, I am off the road a while. I have been going gangbusters for the beginning of the year, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to get a podcast every week, but it's just been on the road. It's very hard for me to produce content. So I'm going to get a little more consistent here as we go on through the summertime because I'm going to be planted a little bit more, so I'll be bringing more guests in.

(48:29):
And I got so much content that I still need to process. I've been doing a little bit on Ireland and I'm going to start putting out my Scotland Castles and drams posts. So keep watching on instagram.com/travel fuels life and keep watching at facebook.com/travel fuels life. I got a whole bunch of stuff that I'm going to be posting out there, and also twitter.com/travel fuels life because there'll be some information out there as well. That's where I have a lot of my conversation. So thank you everybody for joining me, and I am going to get out of this snow and go enjoy some sunshine tomorrow and head back to Minneapolis and then fly home. So it's been a great trip and I hope you enjoy the content and I'll be back next week with more travel inspiration for you. So join me and thanks for listening to Travel Fuels Life.