Something I never thought I would say…Greetings From North Dakota! State #47 on the Hit Parade..
I must say, though crossing a state does not an expert make, I am going to designate North Dakota the #1 contender for New Hampshire’s title as Best Kept Secret In America. So far, North Dakota has been nothing short of stunning. I say stunning even after taking out some of the gimmies, such as the fact that there was a spectacular sunset, and that while we were going through range land I literally saw deer and antelope play. Those things would make any state seem like a star; but I decree hereby that North Dakota would not have needed them to become a top 10 state with a bullet on my countdown.
For openers, even though we are riding pretty well in the middle or even northern part of the state, I am getting a peek at the exact kind of Badlands that make western South Dakota such a wonderful place. I am all about badlands. Second – and a biologist friend of mine that did a stint here prepped me for it – North Dakota is covered in incredible little lakes and is absolutely over-run with spectacular birds.
Birds are my weakness in the animal kingdom, and I won’t go into why again, but already I have seen half a dozen “new to me” species, including one of my all time favorites, the Yellow Headed Blackbird. That male specimen I saw in the reeds could not have been more beautiful. If for some reason you want to gain an understanding of what really hits me hard, it is seeing things like that. An absolutely splendid bird just being. I saw many others, including incredible ducks, teals, gadwalls, etc. Even a few young Tom Turkeys walking around looking for a good time.
The natural scenery in the western part – we are pulling into Minot – is as wonderful as the rolling hills of Napa. I was prepared for mind-numbing hell, and instead I am getting awe. I really can’t say enough good things. I felt this way about western South Dakota too, and the eastern part of South Dakota requires incredible mental endurance to cross without slipping into insanity. Maybe this awaits me now, but I couldn’t care less. My mind is made up, and what the hell, the sun has set anyway; I won’t have to look at it.
I just took a pit stop and got out to mill around during the crew change at Minot. While I still see it as a hidden jewel, the first thing I heard when stepping off the train was the roar of a stock car race at some little track here. What do you expect? Upper Midwest on a spring weekend night…the town intelligentsia needs somewhere to go I guess. I lived in Cedar Rapids for many years and survived; no town can be made up solely of the mesh-hat crowd. No doubt there is some little coffee shop or record store here feeding the minds of that handful of spuds like me who are stuck here among the good Muricans who know full well that in spite of everything around them, there truly is something happenin’ somewhere. My time in Iowa taught me that you can survive anywhere if you try hard enough. I say this only because I honestly can see myself ending up someplace like this again. With all the nature surrounding Minot, who knows; I may have just found a place to go when it comes time for me to do radio again, or to write that book I feel cooking in back of the melon somewhere. Only time will tell.
It doesn’t hurt that Minot is a big railroad town. I am that guy who is going out of his way to live near the tracks rather than as far away from them as possible. At one of the towns in Montana we stopped at, they had on display one of the last production steam engines used on this line back when it was run by the Great Northern railroad. I like steam engines fine, but I am a child of the diesel era, and am partial to them. I have no doubt that the big steam monster on display was a sight to see in its time, but for my money, seeing a lashup of the big modern brutes on line today is one of the most awe-inspiring things I think man has created.
Those old steam engines were gargantuan and garish if I may be prissy about locomotives for a moment. Yes, hearing them strain to get the load over the mountain is impressive, especially when they needed two in front and one in back to get the job done. Even so, the same work done by those giant, belching behemoths for decades is now done by two small diesels that work clean and efficiently. When we have hit the curves (I am in the last car) and I have been able to look ahead at the whole train, I have to say I am floored at what a marvel these machines are. Up and down the mountains, round the curves, and up the grades they never seem to strain or break a sweat. Two little engines of today do the work of 2 or 3 huge brutes of yesteryear. It is nuts to personalize machines, but I do. I admire the engineering behind the design and the engineering of the men and women running this train.
I still am awed by flight, no matter how many times I fly. I get the same on the railroad. Next time you see a train of truck trailers go by, imagine all that it would take to move those trailer by truck! 2 or 3 modern engines can pull a mile long train of trailers stacked one on top of the other, keeping all those trucks off the road, and doing so more efficiently and safely than just about any other kind of heavy lifting done in our economy. Because my father is a lifelong railroad man, I have my biases, but to this day, that low rumble of a massive train doing the work of a hundred trucks gives me a jolt.
The fact that Amtrak is on George Bush’s budgetary chopping block makes me sick to my stomach. The idea that we can’t find money for a rail system yet find a quarter of a trillion dollars for Iraq is absurd. How is it that the rest of the world has made rail irreplaceable and we think of it as a nuisance? My trip this weekend is a novelty of sorts, whereas travel by train is as normal as can be for the bulk of the planet. The negative image of trains feeds itself so that over time, you get what we have now: A modern marvel at the end of the line.
I can’t worry about it. I am about to be rocked asleep at 79MPH, crossing the great prairies of North Dakota and Minnesota. I wake up in Minneapolis and then hit the home stretch, including a pit stop at one of my all-time favorites: The Wisconsin Dells.
As I am sure you will see many times over, the Dells occupy a very odd place within my world view. Seeing it again is likely going to cause me to turn off what little self-editing I normally apply to these missives and cause me to revert to my 10 year old self trying to digest Tommy Bartlett’s Robot World for the first time.
Again, that is appointment weblog reading for you. For now, I am going to pop on Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind, pour myself another cup of crank-case coffee, and settle in for a freak-out session with that great album and then some book time.
Say what you will folks, but damn if I don’t live right.
Posted by rudayday at May 15, 2005 08:55 PM