Osh Kosh ‘Bagosh ND Part – 1

Oh man. I am from the Northeast. Land of the bitter cold, the blizzards, walking up hills both ways to school with potato sacks for underwear. North Dakota 1. NoIt’sYou 0.

I started my trek to ND on Sunday. I sacrificed a perfectly sunny cloudless sky in Boston to start my conference week in North Dakota. Two years ago it was in Charlotte, last year was New Orleans and this year they decided to pick no mans land North friggin’ Dakota. WTF. I don’t know if it was a the lousy service at the airport or sitting next to the crying 1 year old on the plane with the poopy diaper but I think this set the tone for my trip.

I finally land in ND at the 4 gate airport no I did not mean 4 terminals, I meant 4 gates airport and make my way down to ground transportation only to find out there are no cabs. NO. CABS. um, how am I suppose to get to the hotel? Oh, use the  courtesy phone and call the local shuttle. Great. I then made the mistake of asking for an ATM machine. Apparently the only machine in the airport is the one by the terminals once you have already been through security. The one man security line.  I get to the hotel and immediately ask the front desk to have my packages brought to me at my company’s trade show booth. Great, i thought things were looking up. wrong. so wrong. the freight guy is also the shuttle bus guy and i would have to wait for him to come back from his airport run to retrieve my boxes. no problemo. i can wait.

While passing the time I decided to go exploring in “downtown”. Not even close Bismarck. I almost got run over my half a dozen pick-up trucks while crossing in the designated sidewalk even though the lights told me I could walk. Some *lovely* actually had the courtesy to stop and ask ” you aren’t from around here little lady are ya?”. ” no sir” what gave it away? My Louis Vuitton bag, my Betsy Johnson sunglasses, my Vineyard Vines flip flops, the movado watch or was it the pearls? I personally think it was a combination. I did manage to scout out my method of survival. TARGET. Thank the lord!