Moffit, ND is an interesting little unincorporated town along the way, with a population of a little over 100, none of whom I saw during the 20 minutes or so we spent on Main street which consisted of 5 or 6 houses, a post office, and a bar called The Bucket which seemed to have been out of business for some time. No church, no store, nothing but the Bucket, the P.O., those 5 or 6 houses, and a barking dog.
This last photo was taken on Moffit Road looking out onto Highway 83 at a truck that had been dogging us for miles. As I often say, "When I'm driving through the midwest, there frequently seem to be only 2 cars on the road, me, and the idiot right behind me trying to climb up my ass and refusing to pass me no matter how slow I go." Its a long story about how I got this picture of the truck.
One thing you become aware of quite quickly traveling through the Dakotas is the sunflowers. Miles and miles of sunflowers. Never gave a lot of thought to where sunflower seeds/oil came from, but now I know. I never thought of flowers as scary, clowns possibly, but flowers!!! After a while, those armies of sunflowers became quite oppressive. They are everywhere. They all face east, worshiping the morning sun, bowed as if in prayer, but looking ominous, almost predatory, ready to spring and devour some unwitting admirer, moi perhaps...Armies...everywhere...ready to strike...really!!! A fifth column along our northern border...we worry about those pesky Mexicans sneaking across our borders to pick our fruit and cut our grass, but maybe it is those polite, smiley faced Canadians who are secretly planting the seeds of our destruction.
Everyone has to be born somewhere I always say when we are surprised to stumble upon the birthplace of some American luminary. John Wayne's birthplace in a pleasant middle class home in Winterset, Iowa was a shocker. I always imagined he was born on a wagon train heading west during a stand off with the local indians. So imagine my surprise to pass Lawrence (Ludvig) Welk's birthplace, right there in Strasburg, ND, along the 83, particularly surprising because he always sounded like a recent immigrant.
Perhaps it was the trauma of growing up amidst this hostile jungle of predatory vegetation that led for an intense longing for the fatherland and and incomplete assimilation, although he did pretty well for himself anyway. Strasburg was the last town along the 83 before the South Dakota Border. The town was clean and well maintained and therefore not particularly interesting, and there was no visible evidence that they were presently making any effort to cash in on the Welk connection. Strange. The only building that interested me was a really sweet little post office, but it was totally back lit and try as I might, I couldn't get even a passably mediocre picture. Need to be there in the morning. In fact the only thing I came away from the town of Strasburg with was this sign on the sunny side of the street, and maybe that was enough and the reason the fates brought me there...But its too late for me. Hopefully some youngsters will come across my blog before its too late.
As you can see, this is hardly an exhaustive survey of this leg of the journey, but we did stop in almost all the towns along the way, which were few and far between, but time was short, and I did my best to see what there was to be seen, but only so much catches your eye after a while. It all starts looking the same, so onward to South Dakota we go.
Pablo
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