Day 5: Fargo, ND to Minot AFB, ND

I was teaching him to say "woo hoo" and he was moving his arms. 

The last travel day!!!  Woo hoo!!!  Mason was smart enough to get up and watch/listen the weather before we headed out, and our friend Patrick from Barksdale (who had previously been stationed in Minot) gave us some links to North Dakota highway weather updates.  This website would be a lifesaver throughout the day.  We saw that it was going to storm, possibly blizzard in Fargo, but if we left quickly (it was about 10am) we could "beat" the storm.  Since the weather wasn't too bad, yet, we decided to try and get as close to Minot as possible, since if we didn't leave Fargo we though the chances of being stuck there for a few days might increase. 

The driving was the worst that Mason and I have ever experienced, and we grew up with snow in the Chicagoland area.  The speed limit on the highway was 75, but for the majority of the day we were going about 20mph.  I had flashbacks to Driver's Ed and those safety courses you have to take if you get a ticket where they show you the drawings about how far apart you should be from the car in front of you, depending on the weather conditions.  I was definitely keeping my spacing from Mason, but tried to remain within visible distance.  The roads were icy, snowy, and the blowing wind across the road made it hard to see.  My initial instinct would be that the viaducts were going to be "safety zones" from the wind and blowing snow, but we actually found they were pretty dangerous because snow would accumulate in the right lane and you couldn't see.  Mason almost ended up driving into a few substantial piles of snow in the middle of the highway.  He was an excellent guide and I'm glad he was in front.   

We passed several cars that were in the median.  Some looked as though they had been buried there for days, and I wondered how many cars were completely buried in the snow drifts.  I listened to the weather station on and off, and had the gps on my phone, and saw that as we were approaching the town of Valley City the highway was going to be closed all the way to Jamestown due to a semi-truck pileup.  We went as far as we could until we were forced to get off the highway, and you could tell that everyone had stopped at this one little gas station/breakfast nook.  There really wasn't much else to the town besides a motel.  We filled up on gas and decided to go in and have breakfast. This would at least be a break from the car seat for Theo since we didn't know how long it would be.  We were probably there about 1.5-2 hours.  Then we were finally able to get back on the road. 

As one man put it, the driving is bad, but if you drive carefully (slow) then you have a better success rate.  Mason and I definitely witnessed this as cars would go zooming by and I thought they were out of their mind.  You could barely see, and didn't know when ice would come out of no where.  We passed another semi crash and there were apples all over the median and the front of the truck looked like an accordion.  It was scary! 

We decided to take 94W all the way to Bismark since the roads were only a code yellow/purple and our initial route was all red.  The time difference wasn't much, and from Bismark north, the roads didn't look as bad.  We ended up getting to Bismark around 5pm, and took a gas/bathroom/snack break and decided to head on to Minot.  That took us 3 more hours, but the roads really weren't too bad until we got to Minot.  By that point, we just wanted to get there and be "settled."  Theo was SO GOOD!  We ended up being in the car for 9 hours that day.  It made me glad that we weren't doing that every day, but we arrived safely and were able to check in to our TLF. 

My initial impressions of the town of Minot (and this was just driving the highway through the town) was that it was bigger than I was expecting.  I think everyone talked about how small it was, I was really expecting a po-dunk town.  We drove through some small towns, but Minot wasn't that bad...I mean, it had stores.  The base is much smaller, but from what I have seem the amenities are really nice.  Our TLF was HUGE which was so great!  It was nice to have space.  There were 3 bedrooms, and office, living room/dining room, full size kitchen, 2 baths, and laundry in the unit!!!  What a sweet suite!

It was nice to be finally be at our new home!