This time a year ago I was speeding north on I29 in hopes of getting to Grand Forks by 6pm so we could be let into our new apartment. We overslept in Minneapolis the night b4 and didn't think we were going to make it to our 5pm appointment to get moved in. We did not. But when we arrived in Grand Forks I was surprised. There were actual stores and it seemed much bigger than I had expected. It was my first time here and the first thing I saw when I came off the highway was a Best Buy. I sighed a relief when I realized that ND was not just flat dirt like what I had been seeing the past hours, but in fact there was civilization outside of Fargo!
We made the turn onto Washington and I kept seeing more and more stores! There was a TCBY and a Little Ceasers! State College didn't even have these places. We pulled up to Elite Property Management just in time for them to be closing so we made an appointment for the next day and headed over to our new place to at least check it out. We'd got it completely site unseen but there was someone who also worked at our company that lived in the same place so we figured it'd be ok. We walked around to the back of the place, somewhat pleasantly surprised. It looked a little older than the pictures, but I was excited. Our new neighbor came out and greeted us and within no more than minutes we figured out he was the guy who worked at our company and he was going to be living on the other side of us in the 4plex! Good thing too...he looked pretty cool ;) We decided to get a room at hotel across the street: the Lucky Inn Motel. It introduced me to the rustic towny feel of Grand Forks. There was plywood walls and a sink that stuck out from the wall with pipes exposed. The bed looked questionable as well so we brought in our own sheets.
We decided to go over to MN (couldn't believe how close it was).
We spent time by the river-in awe of the water lines on the trees, had drinks outside of Gilly's in the middle of the day, went to Cabela's and went to a movie. It was crazy. Everything felt weird and new. Not bad though, we had dinner at the Blue Moose and watched the sun set at 10pm!!
It is nuts to think of yourself a year ago and then look at yourself now. I have to say moving here was one of the best decisions I've made, right along going to Penn State. The town is full of energy and relationships. The people here make the town. When you are downtown along the river its almost like you can feel the memories of the floods still living in the water. You can tell that major disaster happened here and the people of the town became stronger because of it...well that and the massive amounts of money the Government provided due to few disasters having occurred around that period. The downtown is new and fresh and the people are happy. The weather is mostly nice in the summer and it is VERY green. I've made great friends, acquired a life long love with a canine, and learned to love the Great Plains. I'd say its been a pretty fucking good year.
No comments:
Post a Comment