I’ve always wanted to live in a house like this. It’s another romantic ideal for me, like living in a houseboat. And like the houseboat, the reality would be much different than the dream. These houses were built for people who had servants to help with the daily upkeep. And who didn’t mind running up [...]
Posts from ‘May, 2010’
BNSF 2733
Now you know I love trains, all of them, freight and passenger. So my niece and I were in downtown Bismarck one day, right by the old Northern Pacific depot (now a Mexican restaurant), when a freight train came through pulled by BNSF 2733. I tried to get the engineer to wave at me, and [...]
Double Ditch Indian Village
My niece and I drove north of Bismarck one day, ending up at the Double Ditch Indian Village, a former Mandan village on the Missouri River. The Indians occupied the village from about 1490 to 1785, when smallpox forced them to abandon it. Today, you can see the remains of their lodges, trash mounds, and [...]
Wall
It’s not the most elegant title in the world, but I wanted something very plain to match the simplicity of the image. This is part of the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck, modified by the Topaz Simplify filter. Enjoy! xox
Tin Lizzie
Here’s another image captured at the North Dakota State Heritage Center museum. This is a detail of a beautiful Ford Model T on display there. I’m hoping my niece Cat will drop by the exhibit the next time she’s in the Heritage Center and send me any details on the car. Distances are long in [...]
Tumbledown Garage
My niece and I took a drive in the country around Bismarck one day and found this old garage in the town of St. Anthony. I liked the colors. I have to confess that I like old tumbledown buildings, too, from an artistic viewpoint. I’m starting to relate to them. The Topaz Simplify filter gave [...]
Grain Elevator
To me, this is one of the iconic sights of the great plains, a grain elevator towering above everything else in view. There were lots of them along the BNSF (Burlington Northern and Santa Fe) Railway tracks used by Amtrak’s Empire Builder. This one is somewhere around Wolf Point, Montana. I’m assuming it holds wheat [...]
Wheat
I learned a lot about wheat and wheat growers on my recent trip to Bismarck. Lots of crops are grown on the prairieland, but the main one is wheat. North Dakota produces more than 50% of America’s hard red spring wheat, used to make flour for breads, and more than 70% of America’s durum wheat, [...]
Fancy Dancer
We were privileged to attend a powwow on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The huge reservation, which covers several counties in North and South Dakota, is home to the Dakota and Lakota nations. Sitting Bull, who was a Lokota Sioux, lived and died there. The tribal people get together several times a year in a [...]
