Years ago I spotted this truck along the walking trail on the west side of the Missouri. I started at the trailhead in the Captain’s Landing township and walked past this truck parked in someone’s backyard.
Naturally, something jumped out at me: a serious error in the word “Bismarck”. Since this wasn’t typed, I didn’t really call it a “typo”. I figured someone in the sign shop got a phone call after the first R or something. There obviously was no keyboard or computer on which to blame the error.
I’d often wondered what the other side of the truck looked like, but, not wanting to go rooting around in someone’s back yard, I figured I’d have to find out another day. That day came recently when, on another walk along the trail, I noticed that the truck had been moved out into the open. It was time to “innervestigate”, as Tigger says in my boys’ Winnie the Pooh books.
Both doors are significantly faded, but it’s easy to see that the other one contains Bismarck in its properly spelled form – they even remembered the C. Then, on my way back to the Bizzo, I came across one that I had driven by innumerable times and never seen:
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the alternate spelling of McKenzie Drive in southeast Mandan. This is the sign at the intersection just south of Moritz. How in the world did that go unnoticed for so long? I have no idea…I’d like to think strict vigilance to the traffic in my surroundings. Maybe the sign itself is a recent replacement, although the new ones are lowercase. I don’t know, but I spotted it this time.
So, I went out in search of a misspelling. I found one, but certainly not the one I expected.
Tools of the trade. From the M4-configuration rifle to the “RV”, these guys have the tools to go along with the tactics. One of the team was gracious enough to lift the children up through the top hatch to look around.
Here’s the bomb squad robot. Visitors could go up in the trailer and see how it’s operated remotely, and other tools of the trade were on display as well.
Driving through Mandan this weekend I was surprised to find this dumpster along 1st Street. That’s a pretty cool tribute to Mandan history! It just goes to show that there’s a never-ending supply of neat stuff to discover around Bismarck-Mandan, no matter how much time one spends poking around with one’s cameras.
After a total blast of an evening last night, I decided to toss the family into the truck and head to Double Ditch, where we spent the waning hours skipping stones and getting our feet muddy. One goal was that elusive sunset photo, something I used to take a couple times a week back when the kids were so little and schedules were more flexible. I got it tonight…sorta.
