We've arrived!

We've done it! We're now officially on Central Time for the next year.

We arrived in Fargo around 6 p.m. yesterday, after getting an unexpectedly early start Monday evening, around 9 p.m. Here's the house as we left it, shot through the windshield of the moving van (right). Please note the gorgeous new roof, which was completed the day before.

The first night, we made it to the Laurel Highlands, along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and near where Joey and Katie and I like to go backpacking. I took off the next morning around 7 in the moving van, because the moving van doesn't really like to go above 65 mph. It's a diesel: It handled well, and I ended up getting almost 9 miles per gallon in it, but acceleration was not its strong point.

Jen and I spent the day passing each other back and forth, drove straight through Chicago during rush hour -- and in the rain! We ended up stopping in the Wisconsin Dells, a town sort of made up of indoor water-parks. We stayed at a non-fun hotel, since we were arriving too late to enjoy an expensive room, and had to leave early the next morning.

My dream of compensating for taking three days out of studying for the bar by listening to bar-review tapes along the way was mostly a failure. I was trying to bone up on Property, and the guy simply put me to sleep. (Plus he literally said most every statement three times -- we covered maybe 4 hours of material in the 12 hours I listened.)

Better, though not as educational, were songs from Pixar's "Cars" soundtrack, particularly the cover of "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flatts. Now, yelping out that song at top volume will keep you fully awake, no doubt about it. Life is a highway, and I do want to ride it all night long.

Over in the minivan, Jen and the kids did well. Jen alternated between playing her iPod through the stereo and playing DVDs on the laptop, which she jammed in between the front seats. The kids were awfully good for virtually the entire trip.

On the final day of the drive, the phone company called to tell us they'd installed the phone and DSL line. I called my Fargo colleague, and she very kindly arranged for us to hire her high-school-aged son and two of his baseball-team buddies to help us unpack the truck. Cell coverage faltered only a little bit about 20 miles out of Fargo.

I'd wondered where the line is between the rolling hills and the stark flatness. It's such a dramatic shift that I'd wanted to watch for it this time. I can tell you now that it's at about Mile 32 on I-94 -- 32 miles east of Fargo.

Mapquest's directions took us into town the back way, a little disappointingly. You cross a small, unassuming bridge over the Red River, and boom! you're in North Dakota. Not even a "Welcome to Fargo" sign, which would have made for a very nice picture for the blog.

About a mile later, I arrived at the house. Again, through a truck window:

Jen, who found irrestible the Wisconsin billboards that said, "CHEESE," was about an hour behind me. This is the rest of the fam finally arriving:

My colleague's son and his pals arrived shortly after, and worked incredibly hard for the next two hours toting boxes all over the house. It's hard to express how much I appreciate their help; though I'd done not much more than sit on my tail for two and a half days driving the truck, I was pretty tired. This is what faced me:

The guys did a great job. After we were done, I asked, "So, what do we need to know about living in Fargo?" And one of the guys replied, "There's not as much to do as you would think."

We headed out to "Space Aliens," a truly funky restaurant with an Area-51 theme. It's one of three or so throughout the region. They had specials on margaritas and all-you-can-eat ribs, which suited me fine. The kids played video games and accumulated prize tickets while Jen and I decompressed a little.

We stopped at one of the gorgeous Hornbacher's grocery stores on the way home -- they're all open 24 hours! amazing! -- and stocked up. Jen made a beeline for the Red Pepper Chip Sauce and other items. I was delighted to see that I finally live in an area where the grocery stores stock real cheese curds as a real grocery item, not a novelty:

Also, this has got to be one of the biggest Cool Whip displays I have ever seen -- apparently, it's an ingredient very important to the local cuisine:

Something I hadn't thought about is the impact of having the alley and all the driveways behind the house. The city very kindly built huge sidewalks out front, which basically give the kids a giant, uninterrupted runway to bike on:

Today, we unpacked most of the day and got the computers up and running. This evening, I took Joey and Ellie down to the annual street fair in downtown Fargo -- more on that later.