MN, ND, SD, WY, MT

My first ever American road trip begins at 05:00 tomorrow morning. The map below shows the states we will be visiting. Final destination is Glacier National Park, Montana (LINK), a distance of more than 1,200 miles from our Minneapolis home. The Dunne camp is excited, having never been west of this here city. The trip will encompass so much more than our time spent in Montana. On route, we will be camping in the South Dakota Badlands (LINK) where I believe the opening sequence of Planet of the Apes was filmed, you know, the scene where Taylor stumbles out of his wrecked spaceship which has crash landed in a surreal desert/lunar type environment. Great movie.

Oh but the movie-locations-coincidentally-coinciding with our mid journey stop points don't end there. No sir. Interstate 90 sweeps into northeastern Wyoming after cutting across South Dakota leaving us close to Devils Tower National Park (LINK) where we'll pitch the old tent. Steven Spielberg made this place famous in his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Not in my top ten films of all time but I'm sure it'll provide good meat for a story and a great photo opportunity.

Train Graffiti

Weather has been hot here lately (LINK). Not hot as in getting roasted so bad that you go into work the next day and people laugh at you because you look like a lobster, nay, a different kind of hot. I go outside to my bike and before even mounting the beast small beads of sweat can be felt upon the brow. Zero exertion necessary. A wall of humidity greets me every time I leave a building. No escaping it.

Oppressive as the weather may be, I don't control it, yet. Most evenings I take a bike ride around the locality and my trusty camera often comes along for the ride.

Minneapolis earned the nick name "Mill City" for agricultural reasons. Historically, grain, soybeans, wheat and a scatter of other crops grown all over the midwest came to Minneapolis by freight train to be milled into flour and other commodities. On a side note, many farmers have now jumped from unprofitable food crop production to growing crops that can be converted to ethanol, an auto fuel additive popular here in Minnesota. Some folk won't risk putting this clean burning fuel in their cars and are often heard to say, "I'm not putting that corn gas in my tank."

It is around this grain/railway infrastructure that I can be found on a sunny evening, riding my bike and taking photos in what must look like some foreign espionage operation. Truth be told, there was a run-in with the Railway Police a few months back. Trespassing was my crime, guilty was my plea. I think the Railway Police are that fake breed of law enforcement though, similar to supermarket security guards. Had they been a force to be reckoned with I would have seen a gun on the officers belt. Instead he asked what I was up to. "Why, just taking some photos officer, nothing more, nothing less." My honesty and acknowledgement of guilt was appreciated.

Something other than the luck o' the Irish allowed me to win the day. He didn't seem like the smartest guy in the world. After listening to my accent as I explained my activities he stopped me and said "Are you French?" They have a phrase for that back home, "Fuckin' eejit."

Some photos (LINK) from this evening.

Feckin' birds

I have a splitting headache that took hold about two hours ago and refuses to shift. A serious neurological condition that is not being helped by what's going on in an Elm tree outside my window. Perched high above the street a big crow is making a long distance call to one of his friends. I can hear the recipient a few blocks away, happily replying with news of what's going on in his life. It's interesting that such small animals can generate so much noise. My crow speaks in bursts of three raspy squawks. The friend or relative waits a few seconds, processing the information, and if this is the early days of a relationship, carefully formulates a response. He then mirrors my crow's call with three identical squawks. A limited but efficient language.

The communication between the two characters is not unlike annoying mobile phone users. Both the crow and the human show complete disregard for others. There is one major difference, I can't figure out what the hell the crow is talking about, though I imagine it to be many times more intriguing than a discussion about what was on TV last night.