Stuck in Fargo
Saturday, June 30th - Sunday, July 1st
Grand Forks & Fargo, ND
First, you probably need a little context. On Saturday, June 30th, my beautiful cousin married the love of her life in Grand Forks, and we were not about to miss the wedding. (Congratulations Michaela and Alec, many blessings!) We ended up splitting up, with Mom, Grady and I on an evening flight to Grand Forks, and Dad on a Sunday morning flight to Fargo. In case you're not familiar with your North Dakota geography, Fargo is about an hour south of Grand Forks. So Dad rented a car and drove up.
That's all fine and good, we made it in time for the wedding, we had a car to ride in... But the trouble with rental cars is that if you don't want to pay a drop fee, you need to drop it off at the original rental location. Again, not a huge deal. Only an hour and the flights out of Fargo looked better than those out of Grand Forks. So we packed up and made it in time for a 10 o'clock flight. Too bad there were only two seats. Dad and Grady headed home, while Mom and I stayed to wait for the next flight. No big deal, the 1 o'clock flight didn't look great, but the 6 o'clock one did.
WRONG! Mother nature came along and decided to serve Minneapolis a nice storm, causing flights to reroute to Fargo, and outgoing MSP flights to be delayed.
What do you do at an airport all day?
Hector International Airport is really quite small. So I, of course, walked from one end to the other. That killed about 10 minutes. We bought some snacks. That killed another 20.
I read, I texted, we talked. The WiFi, of course, was not working. At some point, I checked out the “mamava” private breastfeeding capsule. I was hoping there would be a soft place to sit or something but no. Still, nice if you’re breastfeeding I guess.
I took some mirror selfies. (This is the only one I will post, for both your sake and mine!)
We also found two massage chairs. And we sat there for quite a long time, not gonna lie.
We queued some more flights that we did not make. We watched other flights being rerouted to land in Fargo due to the weather. ALWAYS a GREAT sign…
The airport staff got to know us fairly well. And one of the Delta gate agents made our day, by bringing us a whole pizza! (The great thing about standby travel is that it sometimes gives you a great excuse to slow down and meet some great people.)
I managed to get the last seat on the last flight out, but mom got stuck in Fargo. She did though, get upgraded to a suite. Still, it was good to have the whole family back together the next morning, when she was able to get on a flight.
It’ll be a while before I need to be in Fargo again :)
xo,
Cristiana
WRONG! Mother nature came along and decided to serve Minneapolis a nice storm, causing flights to reroute to Fargo, and outgoing MSP flights to be delayed.
Mom and I at the airport
What do you do at an airport all day?
Hector International Airport is really quite small. So I, of course, walked from one end to the other. That killed about 10 minutes. We bought some snacks. That killed another 20.
The snack bar
I read, I texted, we talked. The WiFi, of course, was not working. At some point, I checked out the “mamava” private breastfeeding capsule. I was hoping there would be a soft place to sit or something but no. Still, nice if you’re breastfeeding I guess.
"mamava" exterior
"mamava" interior (note: not a great place to nap)
I took some mirror selfies. (This is the only one I will post, for both your sake and mine!)
We also found two massage chairs. And we sat there for quite a long time, not gonna lie.
Mom in one of the massage chairs
We queued some more flights that we did not make. We watched other flights being rerouted to land in Fargo due to the weather. ALWAYS a GREAT sign…
The airport staff got to know us fairly well. And one of the Delta gate agents made our day, by bringing us a whole pizza! (The great thing about standby travel is that it sometimes gives you a great excuse to slow down and meet some great people.)
Our pizza
I managed to get the last seat on the last flight out, but mom got stuck in Fargo. She did though, get upgraded to a suite. Still, it was good to have the whole family back together the next morning, when she was able to get on a flight.
It’ll be a while before I need to be in Fargo again :)
xo,
Cristiana
