JULES STRUCK

Hit the road to write about cows and curlews in North Dakota for the Washington Post. I took the long way there. Ramblings below. And here’s the story:

Teddy Roosevelt National Park

I LOVE this park. There are buffalo and feral horses everywhere, and prairie dogs. Supposedly there are snakes, but I didn’t get to see any. There just really aren’t that many people here, and even fewer get out to hike so I pretty much had the run of the place. I did an 11-mile walk through the middle of the park and saw mostly grass and sun. No people. Two buffalo. (I tried to give them some space and climbed down and up a little ravine, walking straight through a huge spider web in the process. Had to remind myself that I do, in fact, enjoy nature.)

The grasshoppers sprayed out all around me as I was walking. Sometimes the ground would turn to shale and they would make little twinkly sounds as they jumped away, like wind chimes.

The visitor’s center tells a pretty glorious version of TR’s history in the prairie. Left out some stuff. (Teddy Roosevelt’s Complicated Legacy 100 Years After His Death.)

Raced down to CowChip Farms in the southwest part of the state to talk with the rancher there, who has put in a ton of work to build back the health of his soil and the biodiversity on his land. Got to hang out with his dog, too, which was a treat.

Drove under the stars.

Fargo, North Dakota

[Warning: I am intensely neglecting this blog. Do not follow for in-time updates.]

Slept at a campsite a little South of Fargo and met two bikepackers. One (retired ER/heli nurse) had started in Oregon and was on his way to Maine for some lobster. The other (urban planner) had started in NYC and was on his way to Seattle. They were very kind and we chatted for a couple of hours over coffee. Bikepacking sounds hard as hell. But when I drove away across the fields, I kept zooming past Rt. 52 bikers, who would have a lot more time in the beautiful sunshine than I would that day.

Fargo was fun. There was a good coffee shop and live music in the square. I sat out there and charged all my crap in the outdoor outlets for the musicians. Saw “Past Lives,” which was beautifully shot and made pretty much everyone in the theater cry. I know this becuase the lights came on SO FAST when the credits rolled, and we were all blinking and sniffling sheepishly we walked out.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Ok, last time I was here I was underwhelmed. I’m a convert! This place is freaking cool. The trick is to hop on a bike.

There are bike lanes literally everywhere. It’s awesome. I went back to Caffetto to do some work (it’s still cool) and then then next morning ran around Pike Island and saw the split of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. There was a flood recording pole in the woods (1952 was a bad year for Minneapolis) and red-stalked shoots all over the place. I worked a bit at Mojo Cafe, also very cool, with model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. The rest of the building is artist studios, a lot like the Delavan in Syracuse.

Went to a book store and bought a book, which I have since added to the pile I’m supposed to read clunking around in the trunk. I have no self-control. At least I some things in life are constant.

What else… Went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (free!) and saw some really incredible stuff. Luiseno and Shoshone-Bannock artist Jamie Okuma had some beautiful pieces on display. Also a couple of casual Caravaggio paintings in a hidden alcove.

Someone was having their wedding reception in the galleries. The DJ was set up underneath a massive Frank Stella painting.

I rented a paddle-share kayak on the last morning there and paddled 7 miles down the Mississippi. There are birds all over the shore, and one cormorant (maybe? I’m no birder.) poked its head up next to me while I was floating by. I must have startled it because it dropped its fish. I paddled up to one island with a rope swing hanging from the trees and rested my arms a bit. There was a metal detector (working, I tested) and shovel lying on the beach, but no one around. Spooky?

Big Falls, Wisconsin

We got to Big Falls (pop. 59) a little bedraggled. My friend’s grandparents, Jane and Stephen, have a beautiful house on 150 acres of land there. They’ve got a sprawling garden with everything you could imagine: apples, pears, radishes, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, carrots, cabbages, you name it. We spent a few mornings shelling peas and rooting around in the blueberry bushes. This year they’re hoping for 150+ quarts of blueberries ($4 a heaping quart, unless grandchildren and company have eaten them all).

Pretty much the only veggie they don’t grow is celery, which they buy from the grocery store. They get venison and lamb from neighbors and other things from the nearby Amish stores. We went to one, “Dent and Bent,” which sells beat-up but otherwise perfectly good food for cheap. I scored two HUGE bags of Cliff Bars for $4 a bag. We counted them out; there were about 40 bars altogether. That’ll keep me going for a while.

Jane and Stefan were super interesting people, and their house is bursting with books and art. They told me about their rafting trips down the Grand Canyon and other wild sojourns. Super smart people. Also, Jane is an incredible cook. I’ll be dreaming of her venison lasagna and pork roasted on the bone while I’m eating granola bars and Dunkin’ egg and cheese sandwiches on the road.

Upper Peninsula, Michigan

Drove with a friend from Syracuse to Niagara Falls to the Upper Peninsula. Jumped in clear Lake Huron and played in the waves in Lake Michigan. Bridge construction clogged up the border crossing and we sat there for about an hour and a half. PT Cruiser was seriously tested by the heat and the idling. Thought we were both going to have heart attacks from the stress.

We got some really good fish and chips in Mackinaw City and ate in the car. We looked pretty messy, I guess, because the toll booth operator on Mackinac Bridge burst out laughing when he saw us. Glad we could entertain.

The weather was clear until the last night, when we dumped on by rain. My tent, it turns out, is not rain-proof. I had no idea of this because I decided to sleep in the car. My rain-soaked friend stuck it out in the tent, however, until she crawled in with a soaked sleeping bag around 2 a.m. I’m on the hunt for a new tent, I guess.

Adirondacks, New York

Sort of a soft launch. I left The Post-Standard at the end of June with some vague plan to head towards the West Coast, and to write. I guess I felt (and feel) a little nervous about giving up a good job, smart colleagues and a lovely apartment for the limited comforts of car camping and the insecurity of freelancing. But adventure is always worth it, as a good friend at the newspaper told me.

I spent a couple of weeks with friends and family, then headed to the Adirondacks to camp with old friends from college. I got there early and hiked Indian Head by myself, in a hurry not to get caught in impending bad weather. There were white admiral butterflies huddled in little groups all over the place. Maybe they were telling secrets. Probably they were feeding on deer shit. (They get their sustenance from poop rather than plants, like most other butterflies.)

I did get caught in a wicked thunderstorm, but I got off the mountain quickly. I had time before the rain opened up to have a sandwich on the south lookout over Lower Ausable Lake, with Colvin to the left and Sawteeth to the right.

We camped in an Adirondack Loj lean-to that night. My friend brought a box of beautiful vegetables that we all ignored in favor of gas station gummy worms and beer. We were told by the campground monitor to watch out for raccoons, but we were only really bothered by the chippies.

We did Mount Jo the next day, and I headed towards Syracuse to pick up a friend for the road to Wisconsin. Three days later, floods would rip through the ADKs, even collapsing a bridge and breaking a spillway dam in one town. When I arrived in the Adirondacks, I was leaving the wildfire smoke in Boston behind. This time I had beat the floods.