Still more photos - roadside ugliness edition
Published Saturday, July 01, 2006 by Tom | E-mail this post
Minot, South Dakota - Have USB port, will transmit. This batch of photos brings us back up to the present. (See below for more photos I posted today and a couple of days ago.)
This monstrosity was high on a pole outside New Town, North Dakota, and was advertising a septic service. I wish I could give a close-up of the mannequin's face so everyone could see his pale, sunken cheeks and ghostly expression. By far, the creepiest thing I've seen all trip.
Look! I really am in North Dakota! This is just for anyone who thinks I might just be writing all of this stuff from my living room in between handfuls of Cheetos. Mmm, Cheetos.
"Earl Bunyon" statue, also New Town, North Dakota. No explanation of who this 20-foot tall guy is supposed to be, except that he's apparently Paul Bunyan's brother. Which really doesn't explain the misspelled last name, now does it?
"The candy bar that made Idaho famous," the packaging declares. But what is it? A chocolate bar that tastes like a potato? Or a potato that tastes like a chocoloate bar? (Lamentably, neither of the above - it's a coconut-covered bar with some sort of gray coconutty filling. 'Cuz when I think Idaho, I think coconuts.)
This is the Mormon Temple in Cardston, Alberta, the first such structure built outside of North America. I had mixed feelings about the building - on the one hand, it's a gorgeous structure, finished in 1923 and accented with all sorts of Art Deco and Frank Lloyd Wright-esque touches. On the other and, it's a huge concrete monolith that towers imposingly over a quiet residential neighborhood. It actually looks a lot like the library in London that George Orwell used as a modeal for the Ministry of Truth in "1984," which isn't necessarily what I'd go for in a religious building.
This monstrosity was high on a pole outside New Town, North Dakota, and was advertising a septic service. I wish I could give a close-up of the mannequin's face so everyone could see his pale, sunken cheeks and ghostly expression. By far, the creepiest thing I've seen all trip.
Look! I really am in North Dakota! This is just for anyone who thinks I might just be writing all of this stuff from my living room in between handfuls of Cheetos. Mmm, Cheetos.
"Earl Bunyon" statue, also New Town, North Dakota. No explanation of who this 20-foot tall guy is supposed to be, except that he's apparently Paul Bunyan's brother. Which really doesn't explain the misspelled last name, now does it?
"The candy bar that made Idaho famous," the packaging declares. But what is it? A chocolate bar that tastes like a potato? Or a potato that tastes like a chocoloate bar? (Lamentably, neither of the above - it's a coconut-covered bar with some sort of gray coconutty filling. 'Cuz when I think Idaho, I think coconuts.)
This is the Mormon Temple in Cardston, Alberta, the first such structure built outside of North America. I had mixed feelings about the building - on the one hand, it's a gorgeous structure, finished in 1923 and accented with all sorts of Art Deco and Frank Lloyd Wright-esque touches. On the other and, it's a huge concrete monolith that towers imposingly over a quiet residential neighborhood. It actually looks a lot like the library in London that George Orwell used as a modeal for the Ministry of Truth in "1984," which isn't necessarily what I'd go for in a religious building.
About me
I'm Tom Moran, a bicyclist from Fairbanks, Alaska. I'm spending the summer of 2006 riding from Anacortes, Wash., to Bar Harbor, Maine.
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