We made the trip from Winona to Moorhead overnight, in a rented bunk truck, or "digger" (short for the bus company's name, "Gravedigger International"). This particular vehicle was nicknamed "The Ghost" and featured non-existent shock absorption. Because of the rattled and sleepless ride, a trip to neighboring Fargo seemed out of the question. Fargo is, of course, the city that part of the 1996 Coen Brothers' movie "Fargo" is set. Frances McDormand won an Academy Award for her portrayal of pregnant police chief, Marge Gunderson, of Brainerd, Minnesota. Other memorable characters from that movie are Jerry Lundegaard, the Oldsmobile car salesman from Minneapolis, "funny looking" Carl Showalter, and the laconic Gaear Grimsrud as the two bungling hit-men. The city of Fargo has been projecting the movie against the outside wall of the Raddison hotel on an annual evening in Spring. You can tune in on your car radio just like the drive-in theaters. This has actually turned into a fim festival with directors making submissions.

They are called the "Cobbers" at this college here in Moorhead, Minnesota, and their school mascot is a corn cob. Can you beat that? The campus initially sprung up on the site of a corn field. There are a lot of wide open spaces here and skywalks for cold winter pedestrian commutes from the dorms to campus. The river that separates Fargo ND from Moorhead MN is the Red River. It is one of only two rivers in the U.S. that heads north. Unfortunately, the river water in the northern part of the state freezes and tends to dam the river, causing flooding.

There was, in fact, a spectacular lightning and thunder storm during the evening after the show. On television and in the morning paper, officials warned that heavy weekend rain on already saturated ground could result in major flooding in Fargo and surrounding areas over the weekend. The rain had finally had enough though, and mercifully backed off.

There is a local myth here that the first lightning strikes of spring are what cause the lawns to green up. Although the greening is mostly the plant bacteria reacting to warmer soils, it is true that lightning can help turn nitrogen in the air into nitrogen compounds used (in trace amounts) by growing plants.

North Dakota is home to soy and canola BIODIESEL which is envionmentally friendly and is great for North Dakota's economy. It is clean burning and, of course, decreases foreign oil dependence. Home grown and renewable. Grown and manufactured in North Dakota.

After the concert at Concordia, a member of campus security introduced us to her son and his friends, The Invisible Ninjas, who gave us an impressive explanation and demonstration of the Bossa Nova and Samba beats for us right after the show as they were given a pop quiz by guitarist Xan Mc Curdy.

Many thanks to the Concordia College Cobbers for a very memorable show.

They were incredibly dilligent at the secrity screening in Fargo's airport, but the inspection was somehow pleasurable as it could be imagined that the scrutinous personnel was in fact police chief, Marge Gunderson, displaying a combination of Minnesota nice and a clear aptitude for police work.