This power pole is adjacent to the Bismarck Expressway, near Capital RV. The lines held, and the pole seems intact, so it’s just a matter of getting it upright and reinforcing the soft ground. I would not want to be the guy in the bucket truck that had to lean over that thing and attach a tow line to it!
I’ve never made contact with either the lightpost or the tree, but I did discover the danger of this curve early on in my driving career. Thankfully I filed that information permanently in my melon, because it was particularly slick there tonight! In fact, I saw a 4×4 go by all stepped out as they tried to avoid the curb. Unlike the people whose wheel tracks appear in this photo, they were successful. The person who connected with the lightpost left some parts behind!
I have this crazy friend (okay, I have several, and they have me) who told me how cool it is to drive out on the ice of Lake Audubon. Not only is it a big lake, the ice is very thick, and there are islands to explore. Because boats are not allowed out there, the only way to get to these islands is to drive there during the winter. They’ve got beavers, coyotes, and who knows what else on them. I decided to take him up on the idea of a voyage out there. We didn’t see any critters, and the clear skies turned cloudy on us, but we did come upon a HUGE pressure ridge. Enormous slabs of ice had pushed straight upward in a line stretching almost completely across the big lake!
One of the things we really wanted to see was wildlife. Aside from a glimpse of a running coyote on the horizon, we saw nothing. Of course; the presence of a camera jinxed it, I’m sure.
This is a really cool trip if you have the opportunity, especially if the lake and the sky comply. In our case, we were fortunate in that the ice is incredibly thick and stable. The sky is pretty dynamic, of course, and I’m glad that it clouded up for us instead of the hard light of a clear, sunny sky. Despite the absence of critters, we call this trip a success…thanks to the sight of this giant ridge of broken ice.
A bit of trivia: see that train coming across the bridge? He’s got a very precise maneuver ahead of him. He’s faced with the challenge of keeping just the right amount of speed as he comes across the bridge. Why’s that? I’ll elaborate.
As a train leaves Mandan and heads east, it begins an uphill journey. The track climbs as it runs parallel to “the Strip” and meets up with the Northern Pacific Bridge. As far as I know, the bridge is level…but the track takes a hard right turn almost as soon as it hits solid ground. That means that the train has to be going slowly enough to make the turn safely, but fast enough to keep momentum as it drags its load up the incline!
When I worked for the Harley-Davidson shop on the Strip (okay, so I still do) I would occasionally watch trains as they went past the back of our shop. Sometimes an especially long or heavy train would go by, slowly losing speed, until it was almost imperceptibly creeping up the incline. Then, as if that last little thread of traction finally broke, the cars would slam as they gave up their forward momentum. Then the train would creep slowly backward into Mandan and take another run at it. Sometimes they’d get a helpful push from the yard locomotive, other times they’d just try to carry a little more speed. This only happened on wet or snowy tracks, by the way.
I hope you enjoy this photo of the frost-glazed NP bridge and the railroad story. If you have the opportunity to watch a train come across in wet or snowy weather, watch and see if they make it on the first try!
I also got some other neat frost pictures near the river, but those can wait until another time. As far as I know, the frost is still out there, since the temperatures are cold enough. How long it will last is anybody’s guess…I’m just glad I was able to get out there with my camera to capture it!
Spring she comes, spring she teases…brings summer winds, and summer breezes. Blows through your hair, till autumn leaves us.If you thought I was pulling out some renowned poetry, I have the last laugh. Those are lyrics from hair band 21 Guns. Winter does, in fact, freeze though…and I’m glad I didn’t have to trade places with this little scarecrow I found out by a rural Morton County road. I haven’t had much time for photography lately with early sunsets and two babies at home, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have pictures. I am itching to get out and stretch my legs — tripod legs, that is — on some sort of photography adventure soon. If I hadn’t had the FOX Sports job last weekend, I’m pretty sure I’d have been out on the prairie somewhere, with warm socks and long johns. It’ll happen soon, and the results will make their way here!
I was just wrapping up some yard and garage work and, while my view of the horizon is obscured, I could tell that the sky had a lot of unusual characteristics. So, in the course of running and errand for my wife, I decided to bolt to Hillside Park and snap a few shots. What you see above is the edge of the cloud cover, a window to the somewhat clearer skies beyond. Even cooler:
With a storm cell that compact, boiling up to a height of almost 12 miles while dropping hail, we’re likely to see its aftermath on the news tomorrow. Good thing it’s not in a densely populated area right now; of course, who knows what it might do when it approaches Jamestown!
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