keep on truckin'...

ah, back on the open road. for narrative's sake, let's just say it felt great to get back in the penske. and, also, for narrative's sake, let's kind of jump cut right over minnesota. there was construction and traffic and it was lackluster. i say that understanding that it's a brash and glib judgment, i am positive that those 10,000 lakes exist somewhere, not anywhere you can see from the highway, mind you, and that they are absolutely lovely. but we took the highway, and the scenery was mediocre in comparison to the other farmlands i had seen and the sky was in transition, and sometimes transition is not a pretty site. the magnitude remained. it was definitely bigger and more open than the skies i am used to, having grown up in massachusetts and having spent the last nine years in new york. but the color lost some vibrancy, it became a more muted, paler shade of light blue. not nearly as complex or exciting as the blue skies of wisconsin. and the clouds thinned out and spread out. they were smaller, less dense, further away. gone were the mammoth puffy monsters. but we were not quite at the take your breath away enormity of north dakota or montana skies yet. and so we pressed full steam ahead, anxious for north dakota. fargo fargo fargo, i could not wait to drive through fargo. my favorite accent, one of my favorite movies of all time. i was amped. i'm not sure what i expected. but it was magnificent, whatever it was i had in mind.

and then we crossed the state line.

and i don't know what i was thinking, but it certainly had nothing to do with anything in front of my eyes. wow. you win some, you lose some. i lost this one.

the landscape of the country changed and it changed fast in north dakota. spread out, wide, open, more gold and amber and brown and yellow in the landscape as we drove through in our big ol' penske. the fields were bigger, more calculated, more industrial. signs of energy plants and oil drills crept into the picture. but not a lot of signs of life. where do all the people of north dakota live? the fields of sunflowers were amazing, i will definitely give eastern north dakota that much. and the skies stretched on forever in all directions. it felt limitless. gazing at the horizons it felt as though when i exhaled, i poured out in every direction, rushing hundreds of miles out in all directions at once, taking up more space than ever before, than i ever thought possible. it seemed limitless. everything seemed absolutely limitless out there.

the best part of north dakota is that clearly it carries some sort of napolean complex and has a real competitive streak. who can blame it? south dakota has got mt rushmore, montana has got all those ranches and yellowstone, not to mention dibs on the phrase "big sky country", minnesota claims to have 10,000 lakes...and so driving through north dakota it's constantly screaming out at you, "hey! i'm special too!! look what i've got!" everything is "home of the biggest _____" we've got the biggest cow! well, we've got the biggest buffalo! well, we've got the biggest dinosaur fossil! and they all have gigantic statues to commemorate their peculiarity and visitor shops/museums where you can learn more (*if learning more means buying souvenirs). it's kitsch and gimmick on a grandiose scale. and that is awesome. weird, but awesome.

it was not until we had long since passed bismarck and hit the western edge of north dakota that it became truly awesome. the painted canyon? i had. no. idea. it was a scene that could not have been better orchestrated and devised, driving through the badlands and the painted canyon heading due west towards montana watching the sunset. (friendly reminder for the non-directional savvy readers of this oh-so-captivating blog: the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. or, to be obnoxiously direct, we drove right into the sunset.) i don't think i will ever forget that sunset as long as i live.