From Minot, ND to Glasgow, MT. Cool, overcast. It didn’t actually rain but it was very threatening.

Hwy 2 is often an interesting road in that it varies between two-lane and newly divided four-lane. This occasionally leads to confusing lane striping on the portion that used to be two-lane.

that bit between the two yellow lines is the left hand west-bound lane.

I stopped at the Wal-Mart in Williston. Couldn’t be more different from the W-Ms near home if they tried to be. Huge, wide aisles, well lit, well signed, *clean*. Replenished some supplies and headed back out. Head turner on the way out of the parking lot. You’ll notice that the Wal-Mart Logo is nowhere near the sign that says Liquor.

tires, groceries, lawn furniture, and tequila

Along the road there are lots of these little oil pumps slowly moving up and down. Hypnotic.

oil for america

The main attraction for the day was the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. Unlike that other confluence I tried to see this one is open and inviting. The North Dakota Historical Society maintains an interpretive center that sits in the middle of a wetland wild-life refuge.

The Yellowstone River is the longest un-dammed river in the contiguous Untied States.

missouri on the far left, yellowstone on the mid left, wetlands on the right

The coolest part of the visit was eating lunch in the company of 20 or so Goldfinches. The center puts out feeders and keeps them well stocked.

two fellows and a lady dining

waiting his turn

This little guy is not a goldfinch but he was very interested in what I was having for lunch…

what have you got there?

One more goldfinch.

thistle feeder

Next door (sort of) is a recreation of the Fort Union trading post. Built by the American Fur Company in 1828 it was not a military installation. Trade continued until 1866 when Fort Union was torn down and the timber etc. was used to build Fort Buford. (Which was a military installation.)

a place to trade furs

It looks way too much like a Disneyland recreation to me but the original was white washed at the insistence of the management who though it made the place more ‘impressive’.

There were these lovely blue flowers in the parking lot. I have no idea what they are — except pretty.

blue but not bachelor buttons.

From Fort Union I tried to get back up to Hwy 2 using 58 North. Didn’t get far before the “pavement ends” sign sent me back the longer way around. It wasn’t the first time I’ve questioned my choice of vehicle. There have been a lot of local dams up 5 –10 miles of gravel road that I have passed on. On the other hand absolute comfort at 70(nominal) with the top down is just too good to pass up.

Got a whiff of nostaligia when I stopped for gas in Culbertson, MT. Do you remember this guy?

an old friend

Two more quick images from the road between Culbertson and Glasgow.

This is railroad country — here’s another piece of maintenance equipment. I’m staying in the largest hotel for 100+ miles around. There are two full size buses and 5 of the large trucks that can also run on rails used for maintenance-of-way
trucks. (BTW the Wikipedia link is a stub — anyone have a good links for identifying the types of vehicles?)

no doubt this does something very cool

All over the west you find houses that have been abandoned. Sometimes with new houses built right next them. This one doesn’t have anything near it except the range fence.

what happens when you don’t fix the leaks in the roof

Random Stuff:

70 mph on a divided four-lane is not conducive to stopping for the odd photo-op. 70 on a two-lane is better. 60 on a two-lane is even better and not at all hard to get away with out here. Locals are usually driving that slowly anyway and the rest know how to pass politely.

Towns along Hwy 2 in Minnesota, N. Dakota, and much of Montana exist to house/service grain elevators and the railroads that transport the grain.

I need one of those little wifi detector things. There is no cell phone data service out here — but I know that most towns have a town hall, library, school, or community center with open wifi that my Crackberry could talk to. I just don’t have quick way of detecting them.

Song and Lyric of the Day:

The moments of pleasures never do last
Are gone like a suitcase full of your past

Ashes by Now — Emmy Lou Harris

More signers should cover Springsteen songs.

The changes in the color of the worn asphalt make road pictures identifiable to the experienced traveler. (Ooo, rose beige — that would eastern Montana)

I have finished reading Gruber’s Forgery of Venus (good) and begun Giaman’s Neverwhere.

Today’s Route:

View It’s a Big Dam Country — Day 23 in a larger map

Progress has been made on the ring.

A flat piece of copper was hammered and then cut into a circle.
That circle was dapped into a dome shape.
The the tree bit was soldered onto the domed bit, making a hollow ornament
A chunk of 12 gauge half round sterling wire was made into a ring band.
The top was then sodlered to the ring band and… voila …

the front of the ring

ring face soldered onto the ring band

ring from the side

I happen to be pretty dang proud of my first “real” soldering project.

Next up the finishing. In the end the top of the ring will be black and the band will be satin finished silver.

I’m taking Jewelry and Metalsmithing 1 at the Pratt Fine Arts Center.

Our first project is a ring. The top is made of a piece of pierced copper soldered to a half dome. Below are pictures of the two tops that I made last week. The pattern is gluesd on with rubber cement and then holes are drilled in the copper so that you can thread a jewelr’s saw through it and make the cuts.

The first ones didn’t quite workout. The rays on the start just wouldn’t stay straight. More practice is clearly the answer.

moon and stars pierced copper

The second piece worked nicely.

tree design pattern

The circle on the front shows where the half dome will be soldered on.

From the top it will look like this.

the front

More next week when I make the dome and learn how to solder things that aren’t carrying electricity.

… someone with the Farckle Gene doesn’t own motorcycles.

oh my…

Just goes to show you.

so the other day as i was looking through some of the thousands of folders of photos we have i found this one.

sign on the ferry

other than the catchy rhyme it’s a lousy sign.

i just want to know who they (the people who designed the sign) think is going to understand that this is where you should go if you need to get into the lifeboat?

On my way back to my interrupted vacation in Oaxaca I had the chance to upgrade my DFW to MEX flight to business class. I *love* business class. The only thing better than the leg room is the refuge from the “cheap as we can make it” ethos of coach. Including this lovely little bit of packaging that arrived with my salad.

Sitting on the side of the (place mat covered, of course) tray was this little gem.

a sweet little package for salt and pepper

Pulling at the cutout in the top reveals:

sliding the inner package out

Completely disassembled the actual container is obviously nothing special. It’s the sleeve that makes it more.

package disassembled

Note that the manufacturer has also made it very easy to create these for anyone. Any name or logo can be printed on the sleeves. Some clever things could be done with the cutouts for the words and at the top as well.

Oh, and the other thing that rocks American Airlines business class — hot roasted nuts.

We’re building a lot of stone walls this year. When we first had the lawns and beds installed we didn’t have the time and money to build the bed walls that we wanted so we used the black plastic edging to keep the grass out of the beds (sort of) This year we’re replacing the plastic edging with stone walls. We’re using cast stones (concrete) in three colors. We’ve done a handful of walls so far.

We did the wall around the bed behind the pergola last fall as a test. Then we bought 10 pallets of stones.

The sea pinks are getting ready to bloom (madly) and the lilies are coming up. I just have to remember to put down slug bait on a regular basis.

I’ve put a bunch of herbs in this bed as well. It’s convenient to the kitchen. There’s a space in the middle for basil. Which I’ll put in when I get the tomatoes later in June.

We did the wall around the bird bath bed last weekend. Once up on a time there were some 40 or 50 tulips in this bed. Five years later we got a poor showing of three blooms. Tulips just don’t last.

The only thing that stayed in this bed are the peonies. Mostly it’s perennials, crocisima, ox-eye daisies, geums, and the like. The little triangle in the front has a few annuals. Calendula for color and stocks for fragrance. Usually I put nicotiana in the front of the house but this year I’m trying stocks.

BTW the wordpress dictionary is woefully ignorant of plant names.

ColourLovers posted a list of all 120 Crayola crayon colors and their (approximate) hex and RGB codes. The list was complied by Aaron at ColorSchemer.com.

I am now going to waste several hours creating a custom Photoshop palette of these colors.

Sigh.

BTW When did the Crayola site change so much? I remember it as being a much sweeter and less loudly marketing driven place. They do still provide nice images of their products.

I’m a fan of birdfeeders and clever product design. The Architect’s Birdfeeder, designed by Doug Patt Pratt, is good looking and an intriguing engineering solution.

The key feature — it ships like flat-pack furniture but better because it goes together without that nasty cheap little hex wrench thing.

The animation of the assembly of the birdfeeder on the home page of the site is brilliant.

• It takes up only part of the page — good for those on slow connections as you can start using the page before the animation finishes loading.
• It offers information about the product that can best (perhaps only) be communicated using animation.
• There’s very little excess information in the animation. Just a little sparkle toward the end of the assembly on the hanging wire. Very effective in signaling the end of the process.

I first saw this in one of my RSS feeds (can’t find it again — drat) and I’m hoping that I can get one. Though with the publicity I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they are sold out. I’m not sure how well it will work in the ridiculous amount of rain we get here in the winter but as a summer feeder feeder it’s going to be aces.

Thusly:

Linkage

including a very early Michelin man

alas no motos on this one, though the site pretty wells rocks.

via: amy crehore