North Dakota

After Minneapolis I got back on the bus and headed up to Fargo. The only thing I knew about Fargo before arriving was the 1996 film of that name, which I hadn't even seen. I watched it on my first night in town and so "I saw Fargo in Fargo" is now a statement with which I will be annoying people for decades to come. Those of you who've seen the film may be interested to know that the woodchipper - THE WOODCHIPPER - has pride of place in Fargo's tourist information centre. See picture. 

Other than the woodchipper, there isn't really much of interest in Fargo. So I picked up a rental car and headed out into the wide open spaces, which in North Dakota are very wide and very open indeed. You can drive for hours and hours without seeing a major city or even a major intersection. Gas (as in petrol) prices have come down slightly of late: on average this week I've been paying $3.90 per US gallon, which works out at about £1.26 a litre. It's pretty good compared to back in the UK, but the American public are still up in arms about how expensive it is.

Annoyingly, after several days of uninterrupted blazing sunshine amid the strip malls and parking lots of Fargo, the weather turned overcast as soon as I got out into the countryside. Nonetheless at Theodore Roosevelt National Park I had a pleasant little hike, which was briefly interrupted by a bison parking itself on the trail ahead of me. Bison are placid creatures, and of course they're herbivores, so they represent very little danger provided that you keep your distance. Unfortunately this particular bison was steadfastly refusing to move, and it was paying me uncomfortably close attention. There was nobody else around, and no alternative path back to my car. 

So I went off the path and skirted round the top of a little cliff-edge to the east: the drop-off of the cliff wasn't steep enough to be dangerous to me, but it was just about steep enough for a charging bison to go tumbling down and not come back up, provided I could get out of the way quickly enough. That was the idea, anyway. Fortunately I didn't get charged and so my matador skills were not tested.

All this excitement will continue in the next blog, and there are no prizes for guessing which US state comes next after North Dakota.

Downtown Fargo

From the film "Fargo"...
the woodchipper.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, seen from Sperati Point

Bison are totally mellow around cars but they get antsy around pedestrians (see blog).
So I stayed in the car for this picture.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park again.
Note the crappy weather.

Medora, ND
This is a wall in the gents toilet in the souvenir shop / grocery store.
Naturally I am unable to confirm if the ladies toilet was similarly decorated.

In Fargo - another cosy quiet suburban AirBnB

Edd vs Food #104
Big Brother Burrito from the Taco Bros truck in downtown Fargo.
Lovely bit of honesty on their menu: "All Chicken Contains Pork"

Minneapolis, Minnesota

New York is nicknamed the Big Apple, and accordingly Minneapolis is nicknamed the Mini Apple. See what they did there?

Before you all ask: no, I have not done anything Prince-related during my time in Minneapolis. The Paisley Park complex is about 20 miles out of town, it's at least $56 to get in, and I never really listened to Prince anyway.

Instead I went to...(cue groans) the football! Or 'soccer' as they call it here. Minnesota United versus Portland Timbers, and it was a bit of a ding-dong, a 4-4 draw with the first goal coming after just 13 seconds. (Quite bemused to see that the Minnesota manager was Adrian 'Inchy' Heath, fully 38 years after his appearance as an Evertonian in my first-ever Panini sticker album). There was a sell-out crowd of 20,000 or so. No away fans as far as I could tell, but in fairness, Portland is a 1,732 mile drive away. That's roughly equivalent to driving from Sunderland to Gibraltar.

Speaking of football, there have of course been some exciting developments for the ladies since my last blog, so please forgive me if I use this platform briefly to celebrate events back home. It was a close run thing but definitely the right result, and frankly it was long overdue. And I was definitely on Team Colleen all along.

Back to Minneapolis. I went to the Mall of America, which is the biggest shopping mall in the western hemisphere. It's just under three times the size of the Metrocentre in Gateshead, and it contains Nickelodeon Universe, America's biggest indoor theme park, which is six times the size Metroland used to be. Not that I bought anything or went on any of the rides. I just gawped and took pictures, and felt faintly depressed about the way our entire economy and indeed society both seem to be based entirely on the manufacture and marketing of pointlessly expensive answers to invented needs. But then who am I to lecture? I spend most of my spare cash doing this travelling malarkey, which is an invented need of my own...

It's been baking hot the whole time I've been here. My old flat cap was falling to bits so I got two replacements, a baseball cap and a sun hat, both ordered from an Amazon seller that specialises in bespoke hats for weirdly big skulls like mine. It was on the way to collecting them from an Amazon Locker that I chanced upon the intersection of Chicago Avenue and 38th St, which two years ago became briefly the world's most famous street corner, and is now officially known as George Floyd Square. It would have been crass to take tourist photos, so I didn't.

The memorial is mostly placatory and respectful, but at the same time there's graffiti saying 'No Justice No Peace'. Currently the prescribed text of progressive opinion on these matters is a book called 'How To Be An Anti-Racist' by Dr Ibram X. Kendi. I chanced upon a dog-eared copy in the living room of my Milwaukee AirBnB and read it from beginning to end over a few days, but I can't say I was convinced. It's easy to formulate all-encompassing solutions to society's problems when you've never held office, or ran for office, or ran an organisation, or indeed done anything at all in life other than go to university and then never leave it.

I really liked Milwaukee but Minneapolis hasn't grabbed me in quite the same way. The downtown area reminds me of Dallas, in that it seems to contain nothing but offices and business hotels. There's no real life there other than vagrants and junkies and suchlike. The suburbs are nice enough though, full of parks and surprisingly big lakes. In fact I felt safer in the environs of George Floyd Square than I did among the high-rises downtown, or on the light rail network that shuttles between Minneapolis and its twin city St Paul.

Big cities have their merits, but I prefer the smaller towns and the wide open spaces; that's what will feature in my next few updates. And there'll be no more football. I promise.

Downtown Minneapolis and St Anthony Falls.
Seen from the northeast end of the Stone Arch Bridge.

Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall Of America

Mall Of America

Another view of downtown, this time from 30 floors up at the Foshay Tower

Minnesota State Capitol in St Paul

Minnesota United Football Club
They have people with loudhailers whose job is to lead the crowd in singing.
Bless 'em.

Plenty of space out the back of the AirBnB.
My hosts run their own tequila distillery. Enjoy responsibly.

That last bit made me laugh all day and I don't care who knows it.

Edd vs Food #103
Falafel wrap and veggie sambusa at the Afro Deli, 5 W 7th Place, St Paul, MN.
(Sambusa is the Somali / Ethiopian version of samosa.)
I don't think this is the first ever fully veggie Edd vs Food, but there can't have been too many.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

After four consecutive European tours between 2017 and 2021, I'm back for another Stateside road trip, my first since 2016. I got a proper grilling from the TSA on arrival at Chicago. For a while, I almost thought they were going to send me back home to Blighty. It wasn't a question of suspected drugs or terrorism, it was just them openly doubting that I had the finances to support myself during the coming months. Admittedly these tracksuit bottoms have seen better days. No wonder BA never upgrade me. 

Anyway, Milwaukee. The three main things that bring fame to Milwaukee from a UK perspective are Harley-Davidson, the 2011 film 'Bridesmaids', and the 1970s TV show 'Happy Days'. I went along to the Harley HQ, but they wanted $22 for a museum tour, and they didn't get it. The main Milwaukee location in 'Bridesmaids' is the lead character's shared apartment (with Matt Lucas & Rebel Wilson playing her weirdo flatmates), which is just up the road from my AirBnB. As for 'Happy Days', well, that was actually all filmed in California. But nonetheless there is a commemorative statue here, inevitably christened 'The Bronze Fonz'. See picture.

There's a prominent German heritage in this part of the USA. Bratwurst is a frequent pub grub theme. Many of the churches are Lutheran, and indeed in some cases the signs do actually say 'Kirche'. My AirBnB host's first name is Randy: I was hoping he'd have an amusing German surname, like Fokker or Büger, but sadly it wasn't to be.

Incidentally I saw an estate agent (or 'realtor' as they call them here) whose slogan was "Real Estate Without Boundaries". Which is, as they say on Twitter, Big If True.

Overall I think Milwaukee has gone straight into my personal top 10 US cities. It's big enough to have everything you need, but not so big as to be overwhelming. Only 90 minutes on the train from Chicago. Good public transport and parks. Very little apparent homelessness or disorder compared to the larger cities. Above all, there are breweries everywhere, with Wisconsin's beer excise taxes being among the lowest of any state in the US. And England's women are through to the Euro final! Happy Days, indeed.

Downtown, seen from nearby Lakeshore State Park

Downtown, seen from South Shore Park, about 4 miles to the south.

The Bronze Fonz.
'Eyyyyyyy.........

My rickety AirBnB in leafy Bay View. Balls to hotels.

Interior of Milwaukee Public Library.
All libraries should look like this.

Harley HQ
Note that the Bike Night advert says 'all bikes unite'.
Celebrating diversity by reaching out to Japanese imports.
But only very begrudgingly. 

Edd vs Food #102
La Casa de Alberto, 624 W National Avenue, Milwaukee
Three chicken enchiladas topped with mole sauce, sour cream & cheese.
Rice & refried beans on the side.
Strange how Mexican food can look so unappetising but still taste utterly divine.