one or two days in GFK DVL MOT - what's to do there?

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NW cannonball

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Minnesota
Searching for roots - obviously these small cities in ND are not grand scenic vacation destinations.

Hoping people here might know the good points of these small places.

Any info appreciated.
 
The roots are frozen in the ground in winter and get eaten by bugs in the summer. Unless of course, you dig them out with high pressure water and oil comes out.

:giggle:
 
In Minot there are lots of chain restaurants to eat at. I like the new brewpub, Souris River Brewing. Their beer is drinkable, and they try to source local food ingredients. There's an air museum near the airport that in summer has some WW2 war birds, and the Scandinavian Heritage Museum has a replica stave church and a terrifying, 30 foot fiberglass Dala horse. The two biggest parks are on the river and still recovering from the flood. The only disc golf course is up on North Hill, and is a beast when the wind is blowing, which it usually is. The season is over now, but earlier in the summer you can see musicals at the Minot State Summer theater.

Of course, between BNSF and CP (or as I still think, Great Northern and the Soo Line), there are lots of trains, a few of which don't carry oil.

If you like to be depressed, there are still hundreds of zombie homes from the 2011 flood, and there are now actually homeless people sleeping out. Not in the winter, of course.

For Devils Lake and Grand Forks, I got nothing.
 
Chair restaurants? That's horrifying.
If you grow up on the Hi-Line, you will eat anything set in front of you, and say "Thank You!"
I remember a Washington Post travel writer who claimed that the two most surprising things about western North Dakota was how gorgeous the scenery was, and how uniformly bad the restaurants were. In Minot, I fear, chain restaurants are often an improvement over the local ones. Most diners seem to focus on quantity and price before quality.

It's on the Hi Line that I learned the strategy I still follow on Amtrak: it's hard to really screw up a steak and baked potato. Possible, but hard.
 
In Minot there are lots of chain restaurants to eat at. I like the new brewpub, Souris River Brewing. Their beer is drinkable, and they try to source local food ingredients. There's an air museum near the airport that in summer has some WW2 war birds, and the Scandinavian Heritage Museum has a replica stave church and a terrifying, 30 foot fiberglass Dala horse. The two biggest parks are on the river and still recovering from the flood. The only disc golf course is up on North Hill, and is a beast when the wind is blowing, which it usually is. The season is over now, but earlier in the summer you can see musicals at the Minot State Summer theater.

Of course, between BNSF and CP (or as I still think, Great Northern and the Soo Line), there are lots of trains, a few of which don't carry oil.

If you like to be depressed, there are still hundreds of zombie homes from the 2011 flood, and there are now actually homeless people sleeping out. Not in the winter, of course.

For Devils Lake and Grand Forks, I got nothing.
Thanks, man.

I heard about the wind from my (now long deceased parents). (They lived there in some kinda "house trailer" back in 1946 or so.)

"The wind" -- it was like metaphysical -- it came from the Rockies and the Arctic. It bit. It probably still does. That's what my parents remembered and told me.I was born 8 months later, but I want to learn what the place is (was ) like now, and probably similar so long ago.

Also, a good friend retired USAF COL spent some time at NDSU ROTC -- that Air Force Base usta be serious place. Probably still is for meteorological stuff.

Thx
 
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Good restaurants can always be found. The secret is to use your nose.
In North Dakota use your nose and follow it with your body and don't stop until you get to Minnesota or western Montana!

Been there, done that, and the only way I would wear the dang tee-shirt was inside out!
Well, like wossname -- was Earnest Hemingway ?

I urinate upon the useless clots who devalue the people and places on the Hi-Line .

So there!

You like a scenic ride -- good.

You try to live there -- sorry - you got no clue.

I would say -- "bugger off ****" but it would be superfluous.

Don't insult North Dakota -- they don't care -- they got a good deal going --
 
As for you cutie slander-bangers -- your comments are cute -- no help - just slander us who live near the Hi-line -- bugger off and die with your cute little slanders -

Or go and live where the money is good- ND. But -- they won't hire New Jersey frauds -- they don't need to :)
 
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I was stationed at Grand Forks AFB from 1 / 72 through 5 / 75. I lived in an apartment in Grand Forks most of the time. The people in Grand Forks were very friendly. The Empire Builder was very dependable back then. It was still operated by former Great Northern crews and the station agent was a GA man. They were interesting to talk to. I made over 50 trips on EB during my time in GF. They had 2 beautiful train stations- the GN used by Amtrak and the former NP Depot which had been used by NP's Manitoba to Winnipeg RDC just 2-3 years previous. Grand Forks had been a major division point for GN's Dakota Division. There was some interesting old passenger equipment used as M/W equipment in the sizeable yard. I am sure most of that is gone now because it had dwindled by the time I left in 1975. No question, Grand Forks had been a railroad hub and people liked to talk about it. I became friends with the son of the Empire Builder's engineers. His Dad ran the EB from Grand Forks to Willmar, I believe.
 
NW, I grew up on the Hi-Line in Glasgow Montana. We had that "lazy" wind coming out of the north. They called it lazy because it didn't bother to go around you, it went right on through. I tell my friends now that when I grew up there was nothing between my house and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence, and it was generally blown down by the middle of January.

I remember the wind blowing hard enough to make the storm windows on my home whine. I saw empty semis blown off the road. Yeah the wind was bad, and the cold was worse than that, (It got so cold that it took ten minutes to get your truck warm enough to shift gears) but the part that probably drove me the craziest was going to school in the dark, seeing the sun come up around a half hour later through the windows, then leaving basketball practice at 6 pm, in the dark, again. It was like living in the land of perpetual darkness for 2 months.

A lack of good restaurants was the least of our irritations.

In Minot there are lots of chain restaurants to eat at. I like the new brewpub, Souris River Brewing. Their beer is drinkable, and they try to source local food ingredients. There's an air museum near the airport that in summer has some WW2 war birds, and the Scandinavian Heritage Museum has a replica stave church and a terrifying, 30 foot fiberglass Dala horse. The two biggest parks are on the river and still recovering from the flood. The only disc golf course is up on North Hill, and is a beast when the wind is blowing, which it usually is. The season is over now, but earlier in the summer you can see musicals at the Minot State Summer theater.

Of course, between BNSF and CP (or as I still think, Great Northern and the Soo Line), there are lots of trains, a few of which don't carry oil.

If you like to be depressed, there are still hundreds of zombie homes from the 2011 flood, and there are now actually homeless people sleeping out. Not in the winter, of course.

For Devils Lake and Grand Forks, I got nothing.
Thanks, man.

I heard about the wind from my (now long deceased parents). (They lived there in some kinda "house trailer" back in 1946 or so.)
"The wind" -- it was like metaphysical -- it came from the Rockies and the Arctic. It bit. It probably still does. That's what my parents remembered and told me.I was born 8 months later, but I want to learn what the place is (was ) like now, and probably similar so long ago.

Also, a good friend retired USAF COL spent some time at NDSU ROTC -- that Air Force Base usta be serious place. Probably still is for meteorological stuff.

Thx
 
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I spent a year in ND one month. Had a project at GFAFB. I had been in the AF over 4 years by that time yet I was shocked at what the real AF was like. Definitely different in SAC vs being an engineer and officer in an R&D group in NM. Quite an experience. They took that stuff seriously! We, on the other hand, were civilians in uniform.
 
I must apologize -- didn't make it clear enough -- and still asking for any advice about GFK-MOT - and apologize for being grumpy about ND-bashers (who will suffer the consequences of their own ignorance).

Definitely planning 2 days near MOT -- and a rentacar.

Some sources say there's a museum at the AFB - can't find now by google - anybody know right title? Ever visited?

Is the Peace Garden worth visiting?

Is the TR historical place near Medora worth visiting?

--AND - I totally apologize for my prior post about an AF COL -- he studied at UND (in GFK) not at NDSU. UND at GFK had and still has a respected atmospheric science program. NDSU -not.

Any places near Minot that a 2-3 day visitor might want to see?
 
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