Ah Fall...

It's Fall on the prairie! The small grains are in (wheat, barley, flax have been harvested). The corn and soy beans are brown and will be harvested before long. The wheat harvest was much diminished from last year so expect to pay more for pasta.

The weather has turned cold as well. Nighttime temperatures in the mid-thirties and daytime highs in the mid-forties with 20 mph winds.

The big news here is that Erleen has left me. She is taking real estate classes in Fargo and staying with her cousin, Nadine Nelson. She left Thursday and returns Sunday evening. Those of you who know my culinary skills know that if she were gone more than four days, I would begin losing weight. Our friends, Ron & Ruth Berge had pity on me and invited me for a lovely roast beef dinner this evening. Actually Erleen left me with tons of good food microwave ready. I'm just lonely. Keeping busy helps.

Today I did some work for a client on the computer and phone. Then went into Cooperstown (20 minutes away) to get a trailer for hauling our generator to Vernon Fugelstad's repair shop. I changed the filter on the heater in the basement, put a switch on Erleen's bedside lamp and installed a shop light in my little shop (see picture behind the trees).

I am also cutting up a water heater. Our basement has three water heaters. One that works and two that do not. Bit by bit I am cutting one up in order to get it up the narrow, dog-leg stairway and out. The City will pick up old appliances for free on October 7th so hope to have it out by then.

Steak on a Pitchfork? - The Gold Rush - Blue Laws

We decided to leave Thursday for Medora. For those of you not in the know, Medora is North Dakota's best kept secret tourist destination. It is a small cowboy town in western ND - on the ND/Montana border. There is a huge outdoor amphitheater which seats several thousand. There is a nightly musical extravaganza. The music and dance are outstanding. We always have supper at the Pitchfork Steak Fondue. Yes, they really do use ordinary pitchforks from the hardware store to impale several steaks. These are plunged into several huge vats of boiling oil. A live band plays while we sit over-looking the North Dakota badlands. The view is breathtaking. We drafted a passerby to take this picture of us just before supper.

After the picture, our camera died with a sigh and the cryptic message: "recharge battery". Unfortunately we had neglected to bring the unique battery charger for the camera, so no more pictures.

Friday morning we looked at each other and said: "We're having too much fun to go home yet". So, being retired, we extended our two-day trip to a five-day trip.

We decided to explore the northwest quarter of ND. We called our favorite motel chain in Williston, ND. They were completely booked for the next several years! But they gave us the number of a brand-new motel. We called and sure enough, they had one room available. It seems they keep the handicap room available and we were able to rent it (for an exorbitant price).

Intrigued we began to explore the region. The gold rush (actually oil) has brought sixty thousand new residents into a town of 14,000 residents in a few short months. Huge tracts of temporary housing could be seen throughout the region. Motels, office buildings, shop buildings and manufacturing plants were under construction everywhere. A small two-bedroom apartment goes for $2,500 per month. A year ago it would have gone for $300 (if you could find someone to rent it). The price of everything was outrageous. We paid $4.15 a gallon for gas. That may not sound like much to you in Humboldt County, but here in ND it is scandalous.

We also visited several historical sites. Fort Union on the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers made John Jacob Astor rich by trading for furs. A nearby Cavalry fort kept the Native Americans more or less subservient. We stood in the room where Sitting Bull finally surrendered on behalf of the Souix nation in 1881. It made me feel old to realize that Grandma Curtis was a teenager when that surrender took place.

We went to buy a bottle of water on Sunday morning only to discover that North Dakota still has a blue law. It is illegal to operate a retail establishment between midnight and noon on Sunday. Somehow I had not run up against this impediment before.

While in Bismarck, Erleen took some paperwork into the Real Estate Commissioner's office. The office was a couple of rooms above an insurance agency. The Commissioner was at lunch, but Erleen was able to do her business with the secretary/receptionist.