Off to Austin...

We're headed to Austin, Texas, today for the wedding of my youngest brother Dan and his lovely bride Jenn. I fly to Maryland on Sunday with Joey to take the dreaded bar exam on Tuesday and Wednesday, then drive back here with Joey, hopefully in time for Ellie's 4th birthday on Sunday the 30th. No posts for while, but before I go:

The local supermarkets stock an amazing variety of locally made chip sauces. In this shot, from the local Hornbacher's grocery store, the famous "Red Pepper Chip Sauce" is just a small section off to the left:

And when the kids and I walked over to the playground at the school the other day, it turns out the light brown cloud that looked like it could be smoke seeping out of a main door turned out to be a cloud of incredibly fine pieces of a plant, source unknown (click to enlarge):

Also! We're so far south along I-29 in Fargo that not only do we have such things as a giant fireworks store at our exit, the speed limit has gone from the in-town 55 mph to a zippy 75! When we drive into town, we build up a great head of speed!

Best places to live....

Hmmm... This is disturbing. Money magazine ranked the best places to live in America this week, and while Fargo scored an impressive 69, just below Mentor, Ohio, and just above Mount Pleasant, S.C., it was 43 places below a whopping 26th-ranked Rockville, Md. Fort Collins, Colo., tops the list, and Tom DeLay's Sugar Land, Texas, is #3.

Opening weekend...

We were girding ourselves for Fargo's weather, but didn't expect to be tested in July. The mercury hit 101 degrees here on Saturday, which is a record depending on who you talk to. Much as I would like to report that these so-called tough North Dakotans melted in the heat, they actually seemed to stand up to it pretty well, and without the complaining that you hear out East.

To be fair, it was kind of a dry heat, and it felt much better when you went to stand in the shade. In D.C., the shade offers no respite.

It was a busy weekend. On Thursday, I took Joey and Ellie to the street fair that stretched along for about 8 blocks on Broadway:

The center of Broadway was filled with dozens of booths from local and regional artists. Along the sides were standard county fair types of food. We passed on the deep-fried Twinkies. The Knights of Columbus, supposedly using a secret recipe "from the Vatican," served up a quite tasty hamburger. We also managed to find some ice cream, and some kettle corn to take back to Jen and Katie:

On Friday, we unpacked, and the reunion activities began. We drove through all the gorgeous North Fargo neighborhoods we don't live in to get to Adele and Mike's gracious home, which is just off the river. (It was explained to us that although their house is actually pretty high, and was never flooded in the recent big floods, the Fargo area is so flat that rising water is like "pouring a glass of water on a pool table" -- it'll spread everywhere.)

On Saturday, we headed out about 50 miles east to go to the lake house of the judge and his wife, on Lake Melissa. It is a beautiful cottage, and the kids enjoyed boat rides and splashing around the dock. Jen and I were concerned on the way out that perhaps we should stop for food -- would they be feeding us there? We realized how stupid a question that was the moment we arrived. I think it will remain a stupid question all year long -- I'm not sure anyone ever gets together with more than two other people without serving something.

Saturday night was a banquet for the judge and his clerks, at the alumni center at North Dakota State University. It was a lovely facility, and the dinner was tasty. The slices of prime rib that we were served were so large that several people laughed involuntarily when they arrived at the table. Delicious they were, and leftovers there weren't. Later, each clerk stood up and told a story about his or her year working for the judge. It was a very nice event.

Sunday morning, we had brunch and tours at the courthouse. The kids enjoyed seeing my new office, on the third floor of the quite spiffy Quentin Burdick federal courthouse. Sunday night, we went to the home of the judge's secretary and her family, and had some delicious deer sausage her husband had made. I volunteered to help him make it when the season is right -- apparently, it's quite a production. Just like making legislation, but with more spices.

The wind whipped through here last night, making a lot of noise amd making us worried that our deck furniture would blow away. Fortunately, it blew in some cooler weather -- it's a temperate 80 here today.

Now it's Monday, and Jen has headed off with the kids to Minneapolis to buy curtains and a few tables, and I'm putting off studying for the bar. We leave Thursday for Danny's wedding -- almost all studying has to be done between now and then.

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.

Moving Day minus 4...

We're still moderately well on track to get out of here on Tuesday morning. The kitchen is about half-packed, the office is clear except for the computers, and a pretty good crew of people is showing up Saturday and Sunday to help us box our lives up.

Years of deferred maintenance are getting addressed on our way out. We're getting a new roof tomorrow, the air-conditioning guys are coming Monday, and a plumber is coming either today or Monday. This joint should actually be in pretty good shape, just in time to turn it over to Meg.

I've added Rockville's weather to the right-hand column, so those in Fargo can marvel at Washington-area, uh, humidity levels, just as those in D.C. stood agog all last winter at N.D.'s temperatures. It's actually two degrees warmer in Fargo than it is in Rockville as I write this (uh-oh).