North Dakota Day
Completed 8/21/2011
Finally getting down to the final few states to visit in the lower
48, we just never seem to get to North Dakota. We fly over
it a lot when we go West, but there's rarely a reason to actually
land there. They have higher fuel prices, and depending on
what you're into, less things to do than many other states.
South Dakota has some great sights, by contrast, so we always end
up there instead.
With the idea of just getting to North Dakota in mind, we headed
Northwest to Fargo, just to spend a day....but the day ended up
being more fun than we figured.
We landed at West Fargo airport (D54) which was a very nice little
airport on the outskirts of Fargo. They were actively having
a big day of skydiving, which was great to see. We were
greeted by a couple of the locals, who were extremely friendly,
and hooked us up with the FBO's courtesy car. The terminal
was simple yet comfortable, and it ended up being a fantastic
choice for landing for a GA airplane. Great people!
Heading into town, we stopped by a local old-fashioned diner...the
kind that is all silver aluminum on the outside, and decorated
50's style inside, where we had some food and some great
Malts. Our plan was to get a bite to eat and then head to
"Bonanzaville USA", one of the local attractions. Fargo does
have an air museum that is rumored to be fairly nice, but I didn't
want to turn this day into all-aviation, so we headed for
something different. What we got was a bit of a surprise!
Bonanzaville was a pretty cool museum, that had a lot of people
there and tons to see. There were many old buildings that
were authentic and dated back to the 1800's, along with a steam
locomotive. You could view actual buildings and settings
from a few various eras. As we toured around the many
buildings, one was full of aircraft, and you could go inside a
DC3, and see an actual Stits Playboy...just like what Van modified
and started the whole "RV" generation! Moving on from the
aircraft hangar, there was a police museum that was full of Police
memorabilia and weapons and anything associated with Law
Enforcement. There was and old fashioned bakery, there was a
boat engine museum which was full of dozens and dozens of old
fashioned outboards. There was a farming museum full of old
tractors. One of the more impressive ones to me was the
Telephone museum that was full of almost every generation of
telephone switching equipment ever made. You could actually
USE the phones to dial other extensions in the building and watch
as the mechanical relays and switches clicked and clacked and
connected you. They had a nice man on hand who had worked in that
industry and he could explain it all in detail. It was
fascinating! There were many other buildings too, but I
won't go into more details here...you'll have to go and see it for
yourself. Suffice it to say, it was a really cool stop, and
it turned North Dakota from being just another quick destination
to something that really was interesting to see. If you're
ever in the area, stop in for a 2 or 3 hour stop and you'll be
impressed!