Along the border and all the way home

Antler, North Dakota

Above is a photograph of the very small town of Antler, North Dakota. The town is less than two miles from the Canadian border and once was home to a customs house. These days, there is less than thirty people living here, leaving what amounts to a ghost town huddled around the abandoned customs house in a circle. It's a bit eerie.

I've been home a few days, but I wanted to leave a quick blog entry that's as much for my own memory as for anyone following along. I left Minot on Sunday headed north, then made my way along the border, through the Green Mountains, and then south through Devils Lake to Fargo. On Monday, I took a short trip into far western Minnesota on U.S. Highway 75 before battling high winds all the way home down Interstate 29.

Also visited:  Minot, Ruthville, Antler, Westhope, Roth, Souris, Carbury, Strawberry Lake, Dunseith, Belcourt, Rolla, Rocklake, Clyde, Munich, Starkweather, Garske, Webster, Devils Lake, Hamar, McHenry, Glenfield, Courtenay, Wimbledon, Leal and Rogers, North Dakota. Moorhead, Comstock, Wolverton, Kent, Breckenridge, Doran, Wheaton, Dumont, Graceville, Barry, Beardsley and Browns Valley, Minnesota. Sisseton, South Dakota.

Boom or bust

New Town, North Dakota

Some thoughts on a day where I drove far further west in North Dakota than I originally intended to...

- North Dakota is going through what has been described as an oil boom. It's hard to comprehend the magnitude of this boom without witnessing it first hand. Highways in the middle of nowhere are chock full of semi-truck after semi-truck, all covered in red-brown dust. In fact, everything is covered in red-brown dust. There are oil and natural gas rigs all over the landscape being watched by men wearing hard hats that drive large pick-up trucks with license plates from all over the country. In New Town (aptly named after everyone was forced to move when Lake Sakakawea filled with water in the 1950's), the two-lane highways are so congested with traffic that a semi waiting to turn left at a temporary stop light can back traffic up from one side of the town to the other.

- Bugs. Bugs. And bugs. At times, it sounded as if I was driving through a steady rain. It was actually the thud of thousands of little flying insects slamming into the windshield. After a while, using windshield wiper fluid does little more than just smear them. You know it's bad when you can visually see black clouds of insects heading towards you on the highway.

- If you like wide open skies, then North Dakota will not disappoint. I did not make it far enough west to see  much of the badlands that cover the state, but the small bit I did see was quite great. I look forward to making it back again to see Theodore Roosevelt National Park someday.


Also visited: Bismarck, Harmon, Center, Stanton, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Hazen, Beulah, Zap, Golden Valley, Dodge, Halliday, Dunn Center, Killdeer, Mandaree, Keene, Crow Flies High Butte Historic Site, Parshall, Plaza and Ryder, North Dakota.

Sitting Bull and Sakakawea

Sakakawea Monument near Mobridge, South Dakota

The monuments for Sakakawea and Sitting Bull stand on a bluff overlooking the upper reaches of Lake Oahe and the town of Mobridge across the water. As I arrived, a storm hovered overhead and threatened rain, the swirling sky providing the perfect background for this place. This land was once the home of many tribes of Native Americans, including Sitting Bull's Lakota Sioux. Now it is fenced off with barbed wire that divides the land into large ranches and warns against trespassing.

I find the so-called reservations, in this case the home of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, to be among the most depressing places to visit in this country. No matter how majestic the land, no matter how proud the history of the people, the reservation reduces it to a sad narrative of how badly they were mistreated and how little can be done to resurrect this greatness. The poorest towns I have ever seen have been in reservations, towns full of junk cars and broken windows, towns that somehow seem temporary even after decades of existence.

It just makes me want to cry.


Also visited: Aberdeen, Richmond, Ipswich, Roscoe, Bowdle, Java, Selby, Glenham, Wakpala and Kenel, South Dakota. Fort Yates, Cannon Ball and Mandan, North Dakota.

Omaha to Aberdeen

Redfield, South Dakota

There's a short break before summer classes start up, so I've decided to hit the road for a few days. It wasn't until just yesterday that I finally made the decision to head towards North Dakota for the first time since stopping in Fargo back in 2008. I am looking forward to just wandering with very little specific planning into my travels. The goal is to see a bit of the Great Plains of both South and North Dakota, and to visit places that no one ever really thinks to go.

Day one was a direct (for me) drive to Aberdeen in north-central South Dakota. The weather was just as windy as it was a year ago. And the while the clouds were spectacular for most of the day, the sun chose to hide behind them nearly the entire time. Some days the light cooperates.. other days it does not.

The photograph above shows the remains of a small drive-in theater along U.S. Highway 281 just north of Redfield, South Dakota.


Also visited: Dell Rapids, Trent, Egan, Colman, Wentworth, Madison, Sinai, Arlington, Lake Preston, De Smet, Iroquois, Cavour, Huron, Wolsey, Bonilla, Hitchcock and Tulare, South Dakota.