U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

Talked to my brother on the phone this morning. He said there's been lots of wind in Dakota. He was driving the garbage truck back from the landfill the other day when suddenly he got passed... by a plastic bag. So of course he wasn't going to let that happen, so he stepped down on it, and this is a garbage truck mind you, so it was howling along. Couldn't catch that plastic bag. Realized that the plastic bag was somehow riding air off of the garbage truck, and it just floated along, out in front of the truck. Never did catch the bag. Took a tight corner and the bag sailed off across a field.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Nothing moves about in the North Dakota winter night. It is as death.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

I spent my final week in Ulaanbaatar undergoing a tax audit. It turned out all right in the end (the tax auditor seemed to go easier on me after I explained that I was not a businessman but a writer, and she asked me what my book was about and I answered "philosophy" and everyone in the room laughed), but I had to spend three days sitting in the tax department, running around the city gathering supporting documentation for events that took place three to four years ago, being suspected of hiding income "like a Mongolian," being threatened with many hundreds of dollars' worth of fines, and worrying that the situation would not be resolved before my outbound flight and that I would not be allowed to leave the country. I told this to my brother in North Dakota over the telephone, and he said, "That's why I like talking to you; you make my troubles seem so small: 'Gee, it was cold last night and I forgot to plug my truck in, so I had to crank it for ten minutes this morning before it would start. Oh well, at least I didn't have to go through a tax audit in Outer Mongolia.'"

U.S.A., North Dakota

Thunderstorm blowing in tonight. The passion comes blowing with it, but nothing to expend it on. Should drive somewhere directionless, or write.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Drove a tractor around in circles on Sunday, raking mowed hay into winrows in the hayfield.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Nice night out here, in nowhere.

U.S.A., North Dakota

In the past two weeks, I've been at the Mississippi River in Minnesota and in the Rocky Mountains in Montana, and now I'm back in between. In North Dakota.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I've been through Regina. I might have gotten a speeding ticket in Regina.

Canada is mildly different from here, but at least it is different.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Last weekend, my uncle J and I set a camper up on the hill at the ranch at which one can now enjoy a drink and listen to the coyotes and watch the sun set over all of North Dakota. It overlooks lots and lots of emptiness. The plains. River trees. Big sunsets.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I spent today fixing fence and watching the sky.

U.S.A., North Dakota

It smells like spring in North Dakota. Wildflowers.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Worked cattle with Uncle J and Uncle David. Moved cattle to summer pasture.

Hauling a calf in the back of J's Chevrolet Blazer, the calf pissed. J said, "We'll just get a bucket of soapy water and scrub it out. Or do the usual: roll the windows down for the rest of the afternoon to let it dry out and then forget it forever."

Driving through the pasture, saw the windmill lying on its side. "Last spring, the wind blew the windmill over," J said.

The wind blew the windmill over.

U.S.A., North Dakota

The whole state is about flooding away.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Scandinavian Heritage Center
Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., North Dakota

Saw the twilit sky to the west. Drove around a bit longer to remind myself of the turning of the planet.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I took the train out of Fargo on Saturday night.

Fargo restarted around-the-clock sandbagging efforts on Sunday.

U.S.A., North Dakota, Fargo

Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., North Dakota, Fargo

The train crossed over the Red River twice, at four a.m. -- once going east into Minnesota, and then again on the same bridge as it backed into the station in Fargo. On the bridge, it looked like the train was rolling right on the black water, which is at the top of the sandbagged dikes. Treetops stick out of the water; it was eerily beautiful. Everything at four o'clock a.m. is eerily beautiful.

Walking from the station downtown, pass the Fargo Linoleum Co., which has a sign on the glass front door: “Closed Friday and Saturday for Flooding.” Sandbags stacked about a foot high around the doors of a restaurant. Eighteen-wheeled trucks are running downtown; they look commercial. It is cold, and there is snowpack.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Driving from work at 4:30 this afternoon, heard Fargo city officials on the radio stating that the water level had significantly dropped, and that consequently sandbagging operations were going to halt at 6:00 p.m. today. Going to Fargo regardless; I already purchased the train ticket.

At the train station, the conductor asked where I was going as he took my ticket. Fargo. Well, he said, at least the station in Fargo is this side of the river. This train might not be running any further than Fargo tonight, he said, the water's only six inches from the tracks.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I booked the Amtrak ticket, then joined the Fargo-Moorhead Flood Volunteer Network group on Facebook, which at that point had 4,716 members. I called the volunteer information line and said that I was going to volunteer, and she told me to go to the Fargo Dome. I said I'd be in Fargo on early Saturday morning, and she said, oh, call just before you go out to volunteer so that you can be sent to the highest priority location at that time.