North Dakota, discovering the spirit.

"Why are you going to North Dakota? There is nothing there!", a few people told me when we were woofing in other states. "It's all flat and really boring. It's a God's forgotten country", a few other would add.

And I somewhat felt that they might be right. What's so spectacular about driving for hours through miles and miles of flatness with nothing to see? But this "nothing to see" is all relevant. And since I don't really take other opinions as my own, I was very excited to find amazing things even in "all the nothingness" around me.

And to be honest with you, I didn't have to look for beauty here in North Dakota. The prairies were all ready to show off and charm me with open skies and kind of ghostly, eerie landscapes.

We had to go north on Rt. 83 and then Rt. 14, passing by Bismark, the capital of North Dakota. It was not boring or ugly at all! After all, we had been driving along Lewis and Clark trail and enjoying the views of Native American Scenic Byway.
The ruins of homesteads of long time ago were reminders of the struggles of first settlers of this land.
Simple designs of ranch gates were signs that the land is occupied and people still live here.
The road was straight as far as we could see. And then all of a sudden the series of lakes would open up and add another shade of blue to already blue dominating landscape.
This homestead was probably prospering at some point. A house, a barn, a shed were standing strong almost inviting someone to come and give it another try on the prairie.
When my artistic juices come up I feel an urge to do something wild. With running on the highways to take a side picture of our Airstream, or running back to take a photo of something we had just passed by but didn't have enough time to brake for, or climbing up on top of the car to have a better view, or letting the car and the trailer stay on the train tracks all are worth doing to really capture the spirit of the place.