Hat tip to one of my readers for this one. According to this London Telegraph article, Cambridge University did a 620,000 person, six year survey to find out more about people’s friendliness and stress. What do you know, we came out on top! Like the title says…we could have told them that. Six years ago.

I think we take it for granted that we don’t have smut on our streets, we don’t have to be afraid to go out at night, we don’t hear gunshots all night long, and when we hear sirens we wonder who crashed their car or pulled the fire alarm this time. The pace of things in Bismarck-Mandan is slower even than Minot or Fargo, and I think that’s because they both get a steady influx of people from other parts of the country. Our city is clean; there isn’t trash piled in the gutters or alleys, we don’t have any slums, and the potholes get fixed (even on north 19th Street).

We live in one of the most “heavily churched” parts of the country too, I’d bet. I read somewhere that most North Dakotans claim church membership; while that’s not a very concrete indicator of character, it’s a far sight better than most parts of the United States.

Back when Ed Schafer was governor, it was not uncommon to see him jogging along Bismarck’s recreational paths. No entourage. No bodyguard. Just a guy out for a run. I took great comfort in that.

Speaking of recreational paths: did you know you could start at the University of Mary, get on the paved path, and continue unhindered all the way to north Washington near Highway 1804? Double back past Horizon Middle School, and you can hop on a Parks & Rec trail that parallels Valley Drive and gets you over to northwest Bismarck, where you can go down to Pioneer Park. From there you can go all the way down to Fox Island, hit the new section that goes from Tavist back to Washington, or you can hop on the Expressway Bridge, take the path into south Mandan, and find yourself at Fort Lincoln State Park. If you choose to journey northward through Mandan, you can take the path north of town for quite a ways as well. We value our recreation here in Bismarck-Mandan!

I deal with stock photography on occasion, so I caught this right away: take a look at the image the Telegraph used for this article, presumably to depict New York. The marquee is promoting the movies Hackers and Mortal Kombat, which came out in 1995. Time to update the stock photos, guys, or maybe use something with less recognizable features!

Aren’t you glad you live in the middle of one of the most friendly, healthy states in the nation? I’m sure glad my family and I are here!