I am regretting any trash talking I did toward Fargo, North Dakota now that I have actually visited it. I had a lovely trip.

A photo disclaimer: I brought my new camera phone with me and took a bunch of pictures that I am mostly unsatisfied with. The action is slow through my phone, and the quality is much lower than what I had been spoiled with before I killed the camera. Luckily Andy craigslisted a new one and is willing to let me hire him as my cameraman (because we know I can't be trusted) for future posts.

Here's how my adventure to the Midwest went down...

I spent the vast majority of day one traveling. I started at the Oakland airport before sun up, and this is my photo to prove it. I ate one of those crappy airport breakfast burritos and felt somewhat ill, but that was expected. If it wasn't the food, it would have been nerves, so at least I got to have eggs before my stomach ache.

By the time I rolled into Fargo the events of the conference were wrapping up for the day, so I decided not to walk to campus but to do a little exploring downtown on my own. I had a killer caffeine headache because I actually wanted to sleep on the plane rather than shoot speed into my system for the sake of a little addiction. Needless to say, my first stop was a cafe. It was of the Internet variety and yes, even in Frago, ND the baristas are pierced, dyed and generally counter-culture in appearance. It felt homey. I got something standard like a cafe mocha and asked where the nearest drug store in town could be found. She pointed me across the street, so that's where I took off for next. The Fargo pharmacy was run of the mill, or I imagine it would have been in 1935. There was a hot-dog food court in the front. This area consisted of one cart of greasy rolling tube meat, a Pepsi floor cooler and 2 or 3 of those dark faux wooden booths topped with a little red basket complete with salt and pepper shakers, one yellow and one red plastic bottle. The rest of the store was sparse. Each aisle's shelves barely soared 4.5 feet high. Andy could have easily seen every item for sale in the place while standing in one place. It did not help that each white shelf was mostly barren save a handful of generic items. Despite all this, I passed the two managers in the middle of the store 3 or 4 times as I scoured for some leave-in conditioner. They were going back and forth about how much to mark-up the new line of vitamins. Eventually the sad truth sunk in: that shelf in the back, dotted with a few bottles of pert plus and a handful of suave bottles, was the only hair-care section I was going to find. But on the upside, I did come out with this a fun souvenir for Andy...

Pure Kitsch

I left the pharmacy and strolled a block off the main drag and passed the barber shop. I took this picture out of my admiration for the owner. If everyone in town has already been in for a trim, why tie yourself down to an empty chair with a foolish promise painted on the sign?

I found my way back to the hotel after my walk and met up with Liz, my former professor and co-author. We caught up a little and headed back downtown for dinner at Monty's. It was an RPI alum social event that I was graciously invited to because my Liz is one of that clan. I was treated to a batch of back-at-school stories over a couple glasses of wine and a macadamia-encrusted halibut fillet. It was as pleasant as it sounds. I remember getting a group laugh right off the bat when I shared my story of my family's reaction to my decision to go veg, so any nerves I had before meeting the group easily washed down with my glass of Cabernet.

That first night, however, I was all nerves again. They kept me up. We were not on to present our paper until Saturday and this was only Thursday night. I feared I was in for a sleepless weekend, and of course that made me more nervous and less sleepy. My old foe, the evil cycle. Eventually I did get to sleep, but as soon as 6:00AM rolled around I was wide awake again and not going back down. I embraced it and pulled out the running clothes I had packed.

Don't let the mild afternoons fool you, it is cooold before sunrise in Fargo in September. The kind of cold that burns your lungs as you suck in the air. I was under dressed, even for aerobic exercise. My pride wasn't going to let me stay in and have a premature pile of hotel scrambled eggs, so I took off toward the river. Almost immediately I found a path that wound its way under the railroad tracks and into a wildflower garden. The picture up there is not meant to be a beautiful piece of art, just a trophy of proof that I was out of bed before the sun that morning.

The trail was not that long, but when I got to the other end I found myself right across the street from the Oak Grove Lutheran School. Garrison Keeler doesn't kid. The Lutherans seemed to be everywhere in the northern Midwest. They seem to have the most money, too. This campus was beautiful. It had multiple buildings, including one very large chapel with beautiful tall stained glass windows (I love stained glass.) And then the back side housed the football field, the tennis courts and this wonderful connector train through the woods....

I did a large loop through the school grounds and decided to make my way back to the hotel at just the point that I had warmed up enough to take off my top layer. I could still see my breath, but the running gave me the few degrees I needed to break out in sweat.

After breakfast we hitched a ride in the conference-provided shuttle vans chauffeured by university faculty. I sat in on my first session of paper presentations. The status-quo for presentations at this conference (and maybe every other academic conference for all I know) consisted of each presenter reading their paper aloud. Straightforward if boring. I took in about as much as I could from the first three readers and then decided listening can be exhausting. It is hard enough to read academic writing 3 times through in order to understand it. Hearing it spoken out loud once over takes a lot of concentration to get anything out of a paper. After the first session, four of us took off together and ducked out on the rest of the afternoon's panels.

We walked downtown from campus in search of some food. We stopped by the Fargo Theatre. This picture is definitely not mine (I got it from their website.) Neon signs are meant for darkness, and my phone wasn't up to the task. The inside of the theatre is pretty cool. It has a stage that can host live shows as well as a big movie screen. There is an orchestra pit and a couple of Mighty Wurlitzers. That afternoon, all of these nice things played second fiddle to Marge Gunderson...

I had heard a rumor that this sculpture was upstairs in the theatre, and I had to see it for myself. The plaque on the base says, "Presented to the City of Fargo by MGM Home Entertainment 'Wood-Chip Marge' Commemorating the Film 'Fargo'." This was one more reference to the film than I expected to get in Fargo, so I was pleased. If any of you have not seen Fargo the film yet, do it. Marge has got to be one of my favorite female characters of all time. Mmm. Fargo is one of those things in life that is so well made that it just gets me giddy.

Liz and Sally

After eating what Mid Westerners pass as Mexican food for lunch, we headed over to the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center. The center happens to be a short walk across the river from Fargo in Moorhead, Minnesota. I was psyched just to cross the border. My 33rd state! In one weekend I checked off two states in the union that last year I might have placed bets on never getting to in my life.

This is the Hjemkomst Viking Ship. This picture I took from the museum's website because I was simply incapable of capturing anywhere near the whole boat on my phone. The ship is full-sized and it is kept inside the museum. The ceiling above the boat itself is a giant tent top. I did take some pictures of bits and pieces of the thing that might give some notion of it's humongous size...

The museum's website has a nice blurb that sums up what the ship is all about:

In 1971, Robert Asp, a guidance councilor at Moorhead Jr. High School, began his dream to build a Viking ship and sail it to Oslo Norway. Asp built the Hjemkomst in a former potato warehouse in Hawley, MN that he rented in 1974. Six years later, Robert Asp sailed his ship on Lake Superior. He died of Leukemia in December of that year. In the summer of 1982, Robert Asp’s family and friends sailed the Hjemkomst 6100 miles from Duluth, MN to Bergen, Norway where they arrived on July 19,1982.

I was only a few weeks old when the crew took off from Duluth to Norway, crazed with determination to fulfill a legacy. Seeing this exhibit started to give me a taste for how seriously the citizens of Fargo and Moorhead take their ethnic heritage. I do not know much about it at this point, but from where I stand it seems popular to rebuild Norweigian icons in their region to stay close to what their ancestors knew way over in Norway. This is depicted again right next to the building with the boat in this replica of a stave church...

This church is a full-scale replica of the Hopperstad Church in the town of Vik, Norway. All of the woodcarvings were created by one man, Guy Paulson. In regards to his motivation, besides being a wood-carving hobbyist, Paulson is quoted on the museums website as saying the stave replica is "something that honors my family's Christian heritage.”

Our tour guide through the church had a twisted sense of humor that I appreciated a lot. He stood in front of the window used to pass Eucharist out to the sick lining the outside of the church describing it as history's first drive through window.

He also said we could stand wherever we'd like to take pictures, except on "those signs over there. They don't seem to want you to stand on those..."

He said it with a seriousness that took me a minute to realize he was joking. Then I think I laughed more than anyone else there. What can I say? I'm a weirdo, too.

In the basement of the museum there was another exhibit called "Celebrating 75 Years of Collecting." It was one large room scattered with display cases and piles on the floor of all sorts of stuff. "Cool Stuff" as they described it. Here are some examples:

Here's a Watergate boardgame that left me wondering why no one ever came out with an updated, adult version for the impeachment of my time.

This is an example of the the poor-mans version of the iron lung. It's a "wooden lung." The museum guidebook says that these contraptions were made for sick children by civic organizations during the height of the polio epidemic.

Upstairs I came across this regional map depicting the ethnic breakdown of the area in 1910. To me, it's another indication of how seriously the folks of Moorhead and Fargo take the origin of their presence in the USA. And in case you don't know what to do with the display, they blatantly tell you what to look for so you do not miss the message. If you want to read it better, click on each picture and then click on "all sizes" above the flickr.com version.

I slept better than expected on Friday night. A couple glasses of wine at the conference reception and a dip in the pool at the hotel left me drowsy enough to actually get to sleep over the soundtrack of trains passing through town. We got up early and I read through our writing a couple of times, concentrating on each word as I passed it to make sure I could pronounce them all out loud. Before I knew it, we were up there reading. It went pretty well, I think. Our audience was only about 10 people, 5 of which were also presenters in our panel. Afterwards we had a good group discussion of all the papers that were read. We even left with some new thoughts on our subject matter. Something about our reading and the experience that morning changed Liz' mind on publishing our work in the conference anthology. I might end up with a published paper out of this, after all.

After the conference was over, we definitely decided that there is a lot more that can go into a larger paper on the Bodies topic, so we're going to keep at it. Hopefully this means that I am going to have a chance to keep coasting around to different conferences as an "independent scholar" while I hunt for a grad program that works for me. Right now my plan is to find a Master's degree program to begin in September '08. Andy, Apollo and l will stay in California at least until I finish whatever program I chose--or get into, but let's be optimistic--and then we'll reevaluate our situation. I did get the feeling, at least from the people I spoke to in Fargo, that there are a lot more great programs that I would like in the northeast than anywhere else. But I was speaking primarily to RPI alum that were trying to convince me to head back east to their alma-mater, ASAP. The pressure felt nice. But no one was looking to break up my marriage, or my sanity (well, maybe that), so they were willing to take "not yet" for an answer. The idea of going to RPI is incredibly tempting based on all the things I heard from the group. They all seem to be very close to each other, and I did not pick up on any sign of competition or intellectual oneupsmanship in their demeanor at all. I have a huge fear of enrolling in a program full of arrogant jerks and bullies. I do not have any desire to go to a school, no matter how great their reputation may be, that is so riddled with politics and back stabbing that I end up in tears multiple times a week. And that's what would happen. I have such a wobbly backbone for repeated exposure to mean people. Life's too short for that kind of bullshit.

Liz left shortly after our presentation. I switched rooms at the HoJo when she checked out. My new room was 2 doors down from a man screaming profanities and hatred into the phone at what sounded like his girlfriend. I didn't stick around to fluff my new pillows and enjoy the serenity, that's for sure. I headed back out to wait for the group of conference-goers meeting up for a hike. We boarded the shuttles again and took off for Maplewood State Park in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota.

We hiked up the summit of the highest hill in the park, all 300 feet of it, and were greeted with quite the payoff-view for such a little hike. That part of Minnesota is damn flat.

We came across this sign that I needed to photograph. Afterall, I've never done any one-way hiking before.

I remember milkweed vividly from my childhood. It had been years since I'd touched it. It's incredibly soft.

I am almost positive this dog's name is Cody. He's a chow/black lab/german shepherd mix, and he can sing. Seriously. When his masters are in the room they only need to do so much as hum a tune and Cody will start howling along with them in time. I wonder how we can teach Apollo to do that...

Cody belongs to the Sullivans. Most of the hikers, including me, stopped off at the Sullivan house to finish the night. This was the home of the man who ran the conference and his wife. Even after a long weekend of work, they opened up their house to 8 of us for homemade lasagna and home made cheese cake. Deliciousness. I was the only guest there that was not somehow related to their big academic family, but they collectively adopted me into their group, anyway. It felt pretty good.

The whole experience sent me home with a renewed urge to get my butt into school again. I am going to start studying for the GRE exam at a prep course this Sunday. By March I will have sent in applications to all the programs that sound appropriate within commuting distance. I've said it, and now I'm accountable to my word. Wish me luck.