Henry’s Restaurant, located in Grand Rapids, ND, population of 15 has some of the freshest seafood in the state according to some of the restaurant’s regular diners. The owner and chef Betty Schmidt orders between 40 and 50 pounds of fresh seafood from the Pacific Ocean each week.  Betty is a North Dakota native, but has sixteen years of experience running a restaurant in Seattle, Washington.  When Betty returned to North Dakota, she knew that seafood would be a great option for her restaurant menu. Of course, there are other options for those who don’t care for halibut, oysters, tuna, or swordfish. Henry’s is open Wednesday through Sunday evenings. The restaurant used to be Henry’s General Store and Post Office, so while you are there, check out some of the local history.

Prairie Oasis, a family run rest stop has plenty of home cooked options on their menu, including a North Dakota favorite, Kuchen. Prairie Oasis is known for their service, including pumping gas for all drivers. They are also known for their home baked desserts, clean restrooms, and a store filled with antiques, crafts, and supplies. So the next time you are traveling by Cleveland, ND be sure to stop at the Prairie Oasis at exit 238, just one mile off I-94.

For more information about activities to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area, check out the Directory of Fargo-Moorhead website.

Many people are familiar with Bonanzaville in West Fargo, but have you heard about the Bagg Bonanza Farm? In the early 1900s, this farm hired over 100 workers to harvest corn, wheat and barley on 5,000 acres of land. While 5,000 acres seems large, the Bagg Bonanza farm was actually small when compared to others in North Dakota that were six times the size. This farm was restored in 1990 after many of the buildings had been abandoned for almost a half a century. You can visit this farm, which opens on Memorial Day weekend and closes Labor Day weekend to view the farmstead complete with a lot of the original furniture in the main house. The Bagg Bonanza Farm is located one mile off I-29 at exit 23 and 40 miles south of Fargo.

My grandparents farmed near Minot, so I have seen the world’s largest buffalo on a hillside by Jamestown many times. This buffalo has attracted many tourists since it was built in 1959, as 150,000 people stop at this attraction each year. The buffalo statue, which weighs 60 tons and is 26 feet high, has brought attention to the northern plains animal. White Cloud, a rare albino buffalo, also roams the prairie within easy sightseeing distance from the huge statue.

For more information about activities to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area, check out the Directory of Fargo-Moorhead website.

If golfing is your passion then a trip to Bully Pulpit Golf Course in the beautiful Bandlands is an obvious destination choice. This golf course offers a wide variety of landscape, from meadowland, riverside, and the actual badlands. According to the Medora.com website, the design strategy of Bully Pulpit was to enhance wildlife habitat and preserve the environment. I am not a golfer, but I have heard that this is a spectacular and challenging course. Well worth the trip across North Dakota to play 18. Medora often offers many package specials and is a family-friendly place to visit.

The International Golf Course, located between Portal, ND and North Portal, Saskatchewan is the only golf course in the world where players are in two countries during the course of one game. It’s the ninth whole that crosses the line separating Canada and the United States. There is also a time-warp on the 9^th hole due to the fact that the United States has Daylight Savings Time and Canada doesn’t.  Americans that want to play this course must go through customs to get to the first tee.

For more information about activities to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area, check out the Directory of Fargo-Moorhead website.

If you are traveling toward the Wahpeton area, you might want to check out a couple of sites that seem rather intriguing. We have all heard about the large Paul Bunyun near Bemidji, Minnesota and the Salem Sue, the large Holstein cow by Salem, ND. But have you seen the larger-than-life catfish perched next to the Red River in Wahpeton? This is a great site for fishing enthusiasts who want to take their picture next to Wahpper, which seems a fitting name for a whopper-size fish. This 40-foot, 5,000-pound fish symbolizes the high number of catfish in the Red River along with paying tribute to the other types of fish.

I had never heard of the Circus Cemetery near Wahpeton, but the story caught my attention. In 1897 there was a tragic accident at a Ringling Brothers circus tent. Two employees of the circus were killed when lightning struck the center pole of the tent. The pole snapped and caused the tent to collapse, killing the two employees working underneath the tent. Their fellow workers decided to hire a sculptor to create a monument in memory of the employees. They paid $500 to have a sculpture made of the snapped circus pole tent. To this day, when the circus comes to Wahpeton, employees stop by the memorial to pay their respects.

For more information about activities to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area, check out the Directory of Fargo-Moorhead website.

The Prairie Village Museum in Rugby, ND features 27 furnished buildings and 35,000 square feet of exhibits. The “biggest” attraction at this museum is Clifford Thompson, formerly the world’s tallest man. Mr. Thompson, born in Silva, ND in 1904 reached eight feet, seven inches by the time he stopped growing. Before dying in 1955, he held a variety of jobs, including circus performer and lawyer. A life size statue can be found at the Rugby museum. It is located at the junction of U.S. Highway 2 and Highway 3 in Rugby.

While in Rugby, you can also visit the Victorian Dress Museum located at 213 Second Ave. SW.  The museum was formerly St. Paul’s Episcopal Church which has beautiful stained glass windows. Marilyn Niewoehner, the owner of the museum, creates beautiful Victorian dresses using only materials that were available 100 years ago. Materials for the dresses can cost thousands of dollars and the dresses can take up to a year to make.

Across the street from the Victorian Dress Museum, you can see the Bell Tower, created by Dale Niewoehner. Dale assembled a tower of bells that he has collected over the years from schools, churches, and railroad steam engines. Each Sunday morning the bells are rung by hand.

For more information about activities to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area, check out the Directory of Fargo-Moorhead website.

Be sure to check out the assortment of images from this visit now available on Flickr too!

Bonanzaville USA is great place, the buildings there have been relocated from all across the area, they are stuffed full of great displays featuring everything from simple farm tools to elegant home decorations from early on in the area’s history.  Quite simply, there is something there for everyone.  There were times when I would see an artifact and think, “I remember one of those at my grandmother’s home.”  Time and time again I found myself revisiting memories from my own life, and learning about how life was “back in the day.”  You can visit their website to learn more.  I really suggest getting your family and friends together to go exploring.

Hopefully, as time allows I will be featuring a local attraction in a similar way each week or two.  So watch for those!  Hopefully you will get a better idea of the opportunities in Fargo Moorhead!  With over 20 unique attractions there is plenty to see, so get out there, expand your horizons and take a chance.  You’ll be surprised and pleased with what you will discover!  To see a full list of attractions in Fargo Moorhead visit the Visitors Bureau’s website.

D = Durable – A tent you are willing to spend your hard-earned money on needs to be durable.  The stitching needs to be clean and doubled up on the portions of the tent that receive the most wear, like the floor and doorways.  The poles should be made of aluminum so they do not break in cold weather.

E = Easy to set up - A tent that cannot be set up quickly, especially during bad weather, does you no good.  A well-designed tent can be set up by two people, with practice, in less than a few minutes.  This is vital if you are back-packing and a thunderstorm sneaks up on you.  If it takes you more than 2-3 minutes to set up your tent, all of your gear will get wet before you can erect it.

W = Weather resistant – Once you have the tent set up and you are dry, the tent needs to keep you that way.  A good tent should have a full-length, seam-sealed fly that will keep you dry from both falling rain and splattering rain.  No matter what anyone tells you, no tent is waterproof if set up in the wrong place.  That being said, every seam on the tent should either be factory sealed or sealed after purchase.

Putting in the time and effort to make a well thought out purchase is the way to kick off the summer and the first of many camping trips.

For additional local numbers to meet your camping needs, or anything else in the Fargo-Moorhead area, click on www.directoryoffargomoorhead.com.

Not too long ago I had a family visiting me that was very excited about being here.  They were the same family I went and stayed with a while back when we were going through the 2009 flood here in Fargo-Moorhead.

We visited the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center in Moorhead, Minnesota.  We went to the Red River Zoo in Fargo, North Dakota, which the kids thoroughly enjoyed.  One of the things the adults really were impressed with was the Fargo Air Museum with the Vietnam Memorial Exhibit.  We talked about the RibFest that is coming to the FargoDome in June and they plan to come back for that.

Of course we had to eat and among the many good restaurants that we have in the F-M area we went to the Speak Easy in Moorhead and Mexican Village in Fargo and each morning the Village Inn for breakfast.  This also gave me an excuse to hit the Northstar coffee hut in Fargo and the Atomic coffee shop in Moorhead each morning.  Luckily, I was among other coffee drinkers.  I’ve been traveling with people before who didn’t drink coffee and found it impossible to even get to a coffee shop, which does not make me the happiest camper for the day!

Well that sums it up for today so hopefully this gives you a few suggestions if and when you have people visiting you and are not sure what to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area.  It really is a great place to live!