This is how deep the snow was at the Fort Lincoln visitors’ center on New Year’s Eve day. I went out to get in my final hike for the 12 Months-12 Hikes Challenge hosted by North Dakota Parks & Recreation, and I picked a fantastic day for it. Not only did I get to make some sort of statement by doing my final hike on the last possible day (one of procrastination, no doubt), but I also got to enjoy the last beautiful winter day of 2022.
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Morton County is one of the best places in North Dakota for a photographer. It has so much variety of terrain – Badlands-like formations in its southeast regions, scoria roads in the west, buttes and wetlands dotting the landscape within its borders, and plenty of the “old farm stuff” I like so much. Then there are places like this one.
This is perhaps my favorite shot of this spot. It may be familiar to you…it was the cover photo for a calendar produced by one of my clients. I love the sky in this one too. Guess what – I had to Photoshop the sky in the first one. Those darn cloudless skies again…but this one is 100% legit.
I like the first one because it gives Morton County some props. It will always be one of my favorite places to roam!
I saw this tree along a Morton County highway and immediately thought of a litany of references from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. First was the easiest: “Your arm’s off! No it isn’t!” See where I’m going here?
“It’s only a flesh wound!” and “I’ve had worse!” also come to mind. I couldn’t help but stop, snap a couple of photos, and post them to share.
While the leaders in our neighboring state to the east are prosecuting their officers and defunding police departments, it’s nice to still see these billboards around town! They appeared while our community was under siege by protesters, and its fantastic that they’ve remained a fixture around Bismarck-Mandan.
I love to tinker. This is a rig I devised to work on a little project I’ve got in mind, should I ever get time to do little projects again. This is a DJI Osmo Pocket on a DJI Extension Rod, with an iPod Touch controller, a 360 GoPro MAX on a Smallrig hanging off the cold shoe mount, with a TASCAM audio recorder. Two cameras, three lenses, nine microphones, and two different methods of stabilization. I figured it would be fun to put the physical gimbal of the DJI up against the HyperSmooth of the GoPro in HERO mode. More on that later.
Continue readingI know it’s now called Auto Value auto parts store, but it’ll always be Hedahl’s to me. When I go there for things like the absolute best floor squeegee ever, or paint supplies and gaffer’s tape, I always end up in the paint section.
When you go to the paint section of the store, you go through this doorway. What is cool about it, and I noticed this a long time ago but don’t remember blogging about it, is the sign hanging at the top of the doorway.
I suppose you have to be a King of the Hill fan to get this, but if you do…it’s hilarious. I got quite a chuckle out of it, but my kids had no idea what I found so funny. Inside jokes are the best jokes.
Naturally, you’d wonder what the sign will say on the way back out of the paint section. Well, you wouldn’t be disappointed.
Who doesn’t appreciate a good Christopher Walken reference? Now I’m going to have visions of him dancing in the video for Weapon of Choice, or perhaps even the hilarious Talkin’ Walkin podcast done by Kevin Pollack, I presume as an homage.
It’s great to see that folks around town have a sense of humor and a penchant for inside jokes!
I made it to Mandan briefly this weekend for a family affair, and accomplished something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time: take a photo of the Brady’s Used Auto Parts building. It’s still shocking to see it in this state, as Brady’s has been a landmark for so many decades. Gee, I feel old.
The land is posted, so I had to take these photos through the fence. Thankfully I had some nice conditions to work with, and my hands fit through the rectangles in the fence just enough to work my phone camera!
One last pano to fit it all in. End of an era…
My fondest memory of Brady’s was when I pancaked the two driver’s-side rims on the $25 car I was driving at the time (long story) and he helped me pick out two replacements for ten bucks a piece. That seems like a lifetime ago, too. Man, I gotta knock off this reminiscing!
If you’re like me, you’ve been wondering when the plastic would be removed from the new sign at the south end of the capitol mall. Well, that day was yesterday. It looks pretty grand.
I got permission to go within the fence surrounding the area (there’s still some landscaping and cleanup to do) and get a close look at it. It should be pretty cool when everything is finished! Of course, weather has been – and is – a factor.
When the weather gets nice and it’s able to get a nice rinse, we’ll be in business. Now I understand what’s been going on underneath that plastic all this time!
The state seal of Best Dakota. You can’t tell in these photos, but it was awfully windy when I took them. For this one, the monument (it feels like a more appropriate word than “sign”) was a welcome windbreak. Brrrrr!
Homage to the old one: This is my favorite photo of the previous sign. But I didn’t take it. My wife did, with her cell phone. Remember what I’ve said about being in the right place at the right time? Thankfully, since we’re married, this photo is considered “community property.”
If you’re in the area, you can check out the new sign for yourself (but don’t go inside the fence!) as long as you practice social distancing!
Well, it’s official: Video Action is closed after around 33 years. I’d been a customer for most of them. When it was announced in mid-November, I had a mixed reaction: part remorse that we’d be losing Video Action, and part surprise that they’ve been able to hang on as the last remaining video rental business in town.
This is where we’d come for all the new releases. In fact, even before many of them would hit the now-popular streaming services, you could find them on shelves ready to rent. Lately, though, I’d find myself stopping in for older movies that are otherwise hard to find.
Once the decision to shut ‘er down was official, things began to go on sale. I walked out with a large stack of some of my favorite movies going back to the 90s or earlier, thrilled to own some of them but sad that they mean the end of an era.
I remember the first day that movies went on sale: it was a Sunday, so I went after church. The place was packed. New releases sold quickly, but I was looking for older treasures.
Before long, the shelves began to empty. Prices dropped, and even more movies found new homes – permanent homes, this time – as December 31st approached. The building had been sold, and during one of my repeat December visits, someone bought the OPEN sign from the window.
I shot a few panoramas for old time’s sake, as I’m sad to see this local landmark go. I’m a big movie fan, but I have to admit that even I had begun visiting the store much less frequently. We view movies differently now, with streaming services and Redbox taking aim at the traditional video store. The fact that we still had Video Action up until 2020 is a noteworthy achievement.
I didn’t know the saddest part of the story until recently: Don Loeks, the owner who founded Video Action in Bismarck and Fargo, passed away recently. I remember wondering if I’d see him during the last month of the store’s operation, but then I heard the news of his passing and it made the closing even more of a sad occasion.
You can read Don’s obituary here or here.
I’m thankful that we had Video Action for so long, thanks to Don’s passion for movies and games. It’s clear that this store was a labor of love for him, and his commitment to that brought a lot of joy to moviegoers in the Bismarck-Mandan area for over thirty years. He and Video Action will be missed.
I had some time to kill on a sunny day recently, and I went out roaming as I’m prone to do. I found this old red machine southeast of Bismarck, its boom reaching for the sky, and had to stop. I’d actually marked this particular piece of equipment in my GPS years ago – 2008, to be exact – but hadn’t come across the right conditions for a photo. This, however, was my day. The right sun, the right sky, and the beautiful green field came together to finally grant the photo I had in mind.
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