By now, Christopher Ingraham should have learned not to insult Minnesotans.
After all, it was his flippant dismissal of a Minnesota county he wrote about for the Washington Post that turned his life upside down.
For those who missed the hullabaloo surrounding Ingraham's infamous column, here's a recap:
In 2015, Ingraham, a data reporter for the Post, wrote a story about a U.S. Department of Agriculture ranking of American counties by natural beauty. Coming in dead last was Red Lake County, in far northwest Minnesota, some two hours northeast of Fargo.
The county was, he wrote, "The absolute worst place to live in America."
Needless to say, residents of the county were offended, albeit politely — this is Minnesota, after all. Plenty of people were outraged and let Ingraham know. They also invited him to visit and see for himself all the natural beauty that this remote pocket of the state had to offer.
Ingraham made the journey and was so taken by the welcome — and so burned out by his daily commute to work in Washington, D.C. — that he didn't just visit: He and his family uprooted themselves and moved to Red Lake Falls, the county seat.
Ingraham is still living out his rural fantasy in the northern Minnesota town of 1,400 people.