Our first senior is Gavin. He is in his final year at North Dakota State University. We've been so lucky to get to visit him in Fargo at least once a year, sometimes even twice. We've really come to enjoy Fargo and all it offers. Gavin takes us to all the best restaurants and hikes along the Red River.
On one of our walks we passed this beautiful mural. I just love when cities let artists bring the sides of boring old buildings to life with art. This was at the end of a beautiful street lined with historic homes from the early 1900s. The whole walk was so lovely.
We took advantage of the gorgeous weather and were outside as much as possible. We played tennis the evening we arrived. Funny story about our arrival. We were supposed to be there day before actually.
But when we got to the airport, this is what greeted us. It is a line of people snaked outside the terminal. This is odd, we thought. We marched inside like this line had nothing to do with us. We were off to our sneaky little security terminal that hardly anyone knows about. But when we got over to it, there was a lady saying the line was 'back there.' We kept following the line only to end up back outside where we started. It's hard to describe our shock. The security line wound all around the top level of the airport and when it ran out of space, pushed the rest of the people outside. And nobody knew why. This has NEVER happened before. Chuck finally went in and asked anyone with a badge what was going on. Come to find out, the underground train that is used to transport passengers to terminals A, B & C was not working. So everyone who had a flight out of terminal A, had to take the bridge to Terminal A which is where our 'secret' security line is. People leaving out of the other terminals were bused there and went thru a different security line. It was a MAD HOUSE!!! We stood in line for an hour and realized we were never going to make our flight. We hadn't even made it inside the airport yet. So while I secured our place in line, Chuck went back in to see if they were holding flights. Nope. No flights would be held, was the answer. What to do?!
We decided to split up yet again. This time Chuck stayed in the security line and I went to the ticket counter line. We had like 30 minutes before our flight took off and we had an important decision to make - risk missing our flight and having to pay for new tickets, or ask if they can exchange these tickets for new ones on a different day since the chaos is clearly no allowing us to make our flight on time. I got to the ticket counter eventually and explained our situation. They let me move our non-refundable tickets to the next day without any fees because of all the crazy. This meant that since they didn't have a plane coming back on Sunday, we got to stay until Monday, giving us an extra day with Gavin, much to our excitement. By the time the guy was printing me out our new tickets, Chuck made it to about 100 yards from the security area. There was no way we could make it to security, sprint through the rest of the airport and make it to our flight before the doors closed. Thankfully, everything worked out and we got to spend the rest of our day back home.
I just love attention to detail like this! We've yet to see a show at this iconic theater though.
I just love the refrigerator in Gavin's apartment. It's the perfect place to write his two favorite formulas. And who doesn't love magnet letters?!
Meanwhile....back home, my high school senior is fending for herself. The original plan was only to be gone one night and her friend would come and stay the night with her. Chloe is highly independent and very good at staying on her own. So we never usually worry about her. Even though our flight plans changed, her friend and her were easily able to adjust their plans.
The day we left, Chloe worked a 6 hour shift as did her friend. They met up at the house after work and both were exhausted. Except Chloe felt extra exhausted. And hot. And achy. She took some ibuprofen and felt a tad bit better. But by the next morning when her fever spiked to 101, she knew she was sick. Her friend left immediately (only to end up with the same thing 3 days later).
So there we are having a blast in Fargo while Chloe is lying in bed with a high fever, moaning in pain over her sore throat, achy body, and migraine and having to take care of herself and Ninja.To say I felt awful is an understatement! That's one of my main jobs as a mom - to nurse the kids when they're sick and carry that burden with them. No one likes to be sick alone.
We stayed in touch via text both days. Most of the time she didn't want to be bothered and slept the majority of the day - that's all she could do. Thankfully, Ninja kept her company and slept with her. She did such a hard thing all by herself.
Sadly, we still don't know what virus she had. She had been exposed to covid at school 3 times (based on the contact tracing done by the school who alerted us). And it appears something was going around at her work as well (we still don't know what that was either). It had all the signs of a sinus infection but also the signs of the delta variant of covid which is highly transmissible. She took a covid text the Thursday before we left and it was negative. We took another today and have yet to get the results (I'll update the post later when we finally know). That's the thing about living in the era of covid now, you have to eliminate that possibility first.
But we're so happy to have 2 seniors, both culminating their final years of learning in high school and college. What exciting times! Plus, they graduate 1 week apart next May! The end of an known era and the excitement of new beginnings!
