North Dakota

My sister invited me to join here in North Dakota for Christmas. She goes up there to visit her husband's family, and it is quite a family. Roger is the youngest of 9 children, six of which ended up being there with their own children, plus one of the children of a sibling that couldn't make the trip. So it was quite a full house, actually three full houses!

Anyway, I was a bit reluctant at first, not sure how well I would fit in. Being alone on Christmas isn't as bad as being an outsider on Christmas. I ended up compromising by coming the day after Christmas, and staying for the weekend.

I had hoped this would also allow me to visit my brother and my sister-in-law when they were visiting Paul in New Hampshire. Unfortunately I was quite sick earlier in the week (even missing the last two drinking days of Christmas!) and on Christmas day I was still wrung out. I think pushing ahead to work Christmas Eve might have taken more out of me than my recovering body could deal with. Because when Christmas day rolled around, I slept till 11am, called my family, caught up on a few things and then took a three hour nap!

Anyway, on Christmas, I spent a good portion of the day tracking the blizzard that was hitting the area of North Dakota, Minnesota and surrounding areas. I only mention those two states in particular because those are the ones I needed to travel to/through. The weathermen were predicting 12-20 inches of snow, or more and near white-out conditions. But as I checked the airport status (even at the seeming height of the storm) Minneapolis wasn't showing delays. When I checked the next morning before heading to the airport I checked again and still didn't see delays.

So, I proceeded with the plan. I went to Logan and found the plane was on time. Because of the odd weather pattern surrounding the storm, we actually made amazing time to MSP and ended up arriving over half an hour early. This allowed me time to get food rather than just running to make my connection. The connecting plane apparently had a bit of a problem getting in (although I think it was from delays at the previous airport and not MSP), so they shuffled our gate and delayed the depature 30 minutes or so.

But eventually we got off the ground and a quick trip later we landed in Fargo. All told, my sister and Roger had a harder time driving to the Fargo Airport than I had flying in. The drive to Roger's parent's place wasn't too exciting, but it was a bit of a novel experience for me. The land is so flat, and the wind so persistent that the snow is constantly blowing around forming drifts in some places and clearing other places. Even though it was still snowing the wind blew the snow clear of the road. Off to either side of the road, it was impossible to separate land from sky as it was a even off-white all around.

The only places the snow would accumulate on the road was near the shelter belts, lines of trees planted to break up the wind. In those locations several inches of snow had accumulated. Actually the snow also accumulated at the intersections where the stop and go of traffic heated the snow and asphault enough to trap a layer of snow/ice which attracted more snow and ice.

That afternoon and evening some of the local family members came by. Some were unable to make it, even though they lived only a few miles away, because the snow plows had not come through and the snow drifts were too high to traverse. It was doubly ironic since others were able to drive all the way from Minnesota. But all told there were probably 20 or so family members there that night to open presents (the blizzard was at full tilt on Christmas day so the present opening was delayed). This is my niece Veronica opening one of her gifts, one small bit of paper at a time.

I got an awesome present from my sister, a T-Shirt that says, "Bacon is Meat Candy". She also got me a couple of knitted caps to keep my bald noggin warm in the Boston Winter.

The next day was a lot of fun. I got my first taste of snow-mobile driving! It was a lot of fun. I didn't get too adventurous as it was my first time. Well, I got a bit adventurous when I was coming in after going around the field for a while. Unfortunately, it was a bit too adventurous since I wasn't able to stay on the snow mobile as I was trying to force through the berm of plowed snow. Fortunately the snow was nice and soft. It was actually less painful and uncomfortable than a similar wipeout on a jet-ski. I guess water is a lot more forgiving frozen and at a tenth of the density. Even more fortunately, my sister was close enough to see what happened, and record the aftermath with my own camera. Yes that is snow on my beard

Most of the day was spent just hanging out. I learned how to play Smear, which is apparently very popular. Considering it requires eight people to play, it is a good thing Roger's family is so big. There was also round 2 of opening presents as more of the relatives were able to make it in. I thought the first night was ordered chaos, the second night was even crazier. With six of the siblings home, their wives and children... it was intense, but fun. I also learned that my Chinese Checkers skills are stuck back in the early 80's, as I was trounced by some of the kids.

All, told I had a lot of fun in North Dakota. The weather outside didn't end up being so cold (it was actually colder in Boston today than it was most of the time I was in in ND), and the people were very warm. So my thanks to the Bartholomays for having me.