I can’t believe it. But we actually got up at 2 AM – which was great because we got to take our time on the drive and not freak out about getting me to the airport on time.

We head out of Amish town in Wisconsin (which was creepily dark without electricity) and drove straight West. The ride was uneventful. Dan and I played music and talked and Emma slept in the backseat. Somewhere in Southern Minnesota we ran into this giant field of flashing red lights. Literally a thousand lights that all blinked on and off at the EXACT same time. It was so creepy. After some stellar iPhone research, we learned that it’s a giant windfarm and those are the flashing lights at the top of the turbine. I tried to capture it in a photo, but with no luck. It was way too dark to see anything clearly.

We turned South at I-35 (yes… the wrong direction) and drove about 20 miles out of the way to hit the Iowa border. Ok, I know this is sort of cheating, but technically, I did touch Iowan soil, so I have been to the state. I pledge to go back at some point in my life and actually see some of the state, but for now, that’s all you’re going to get. Since we had to wake Emma up for the Iowa sign, we kept her up to catch the Minnesota sign once we turned back North. Minnesota has a really great sign on northbound I-35. We decided to sit on the wall for this one, and after I set the camera up and hit the automatic timer, I ran for the sign, jumped up on the wall, hit the back of the sign and fell straight on my face on the ground. Luckily, my camera clicked right as I hit the ground and Dan and Emma are cracking up (thanks guys). Second shot was the one and I made it without incident.

From here, Dan wanted to snooze a bit, so I took over the wheel (*shudder*) without much drama. I stalled the damn thing once, but then we were fine. I drove us up through Minnesota, around St. Paul and Minneapolis and West towards North Dakota. Fargo is right on the other side of the border and unfortunately, we couldn’t find a sign for North Dakota (my LAST state!!) so I was quite disappointed. We found some stupid buffalo painted in rainbow that had a plaque that said North Dakota, but I thought that was stupid and was in too much of a bad mood to play nice with the state. Ruined my whole trip.

Ok not that bad. Fargo was actually quite nice, except there is absolutely nothing there. We were trying to look for a generic place to eat lunch, a Chili’s, TGI Fridays, Hooters, anything. We couldn’t find anything. We drove around town for a solid 30 minutes before finally stumbling upon a cute little sandwich chain called Cousin’s. At this point we were desperate, but luckily, the food was actually pretty good.

From here, Emma and Dan drove me the short hop up to the Fargo airport and we said our sad goodbyes. Thanks again for everything you guys, especially for helping me finish all my state s :)

The airport was actually pretty impressive inside. The check-in/security process was very quick and straightforward. The wait was quick and the plane boarded quickly. We were out of there in no time. I slept the whole flight except when I was eating snacks (gotta love Allegiant Air’s snack packs). I hopped on the train to Long Beach and got to Sam’s at about 8 PM. Of course, the girl is cooking up some trouble, and has some sort of get together planned tonight as a welcome home. Something about beer pong and chicken queso dip? Not sure but it sounds amazing, so I am going to go participate. Update soon and a wrap up for the trip! What a great one it was.

XOXO

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