I was going to take a nice shot of the American flag flying proudly in front of the North Dakota state capitol. But I was unable to do so, as there was a bit of a debacle at the top of the flagpole:

I walked into the capitol building (they’re open until 4pm on Sundays, if you didn’t know) and told the tour guide. She called security, and one of their guys came out to try to straighten things out. Grabbing the lanyard and trying to tease the flag into coming unstuck proved futile. Then I grabbed my telephoto lens and looked more closely.

It was already obvious that the flag was hung up on the brass eagle atop the flag pole. Unfortunately, closer inspection of this photo showed that our worst fear had come true: the wing tip of the eagle had poked a tiny hole in the flag, making it almost impossible to get free without a crane. So we were forced to give up.

Hopefully, since there will be a skeleton maintenance crew on duty Monday, they’ll be able to get the flag situation repaired for Independence Day on Tuesday.