Fargo, North Dakota.

This week, Patti gets right down to business with her challenge. She writes, “This week we’re showcasing cities, large and small, near and far. What are the features of your chosen city? Show us buildings, skylines, the streets, the people, and life in public spaces.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

I have a large collection of cityscape images from my travels across the United States, but I decided to focus on my hometown to share images from a place I’ve called home for over 45 years.

My first few images feature shots captured in downtown Fargo, the 219th largest city in the United States. When we moved to North Dakota in 1978, Fargo’s population was about 60,000. Today, it’s over 120,000. My opening image was captured on a walk back to our car from dinner at a downtown restaurant at around sunset at 7:50 PM CDT.

I’ve featured this image before in color, so I thought I’d share it as a black-and-white image processed in Silver Efex 3. It features the historic Fargo Theater’s marquee on a busy Tuesday evening in 2016.

Not far down Broadway from the Fargo Theater is the Viking Hotel building, now known as the Bison Apartments. In 2022, another mural was added to the city’s public art collection. The three-story painting of musician Bob Dylan is a recollection of Dylan’s living in 1959 at the hotel, and then staying with friends in Fargo for a time.

Over the years, many murals have brought color and told a history of my hometown. In June 2021, as a part of the Greetings Tour, two artists added one of their signature images to a wall in downtown Fargo.

Two major Interstate highways intersect in Fargo. I-29 and I-94 cross paths around a mile from the pedestrian bridge where I captured traffic in the early evening of October 11, 2013.

Over the years, I’ve captured many aerial views of Fargo, mostly as a photographer on Civil Air Patrol missions focusing on flood images in the spring when the Red River exceeds its banks creating the potential for flood damage in the city. On the occasion of this photo, I was in the back seat of a rented plane while a friend of mine was getting a flight lesson. In the process, I captured some images of the city below us as we went out to the practice areas.

That same river that flows through downtown Fargo and can cause localized flooding in unprotected areas is a major attraction for residents in both winter and summer. This view of the river is looking toward downtown Fargo as it calmly meanders through the city.

In March 2010, Fargo experienced a fast melt from a winter with heavy snow. There was flooding all along the Red River the entire length of the state. This view shows water overflowing the bridge on 12th Avenue North. Fargo is a border city and the bridge crosses the river into Moorhead, Minnesota which is where we were flying at the time I captured this image from the back seat of our photo plane.

Incidentally, the view of the Red River in Winter above was taken from a spot along the shore on the far right of the aerial image. That area is underwater in the image immediately above. The snow-covered narrow area in the river is the same location in both photos.

In south Fargo, a former orchard has been transformed into a city park where residents can freely pick the harvest from the many fruit trees that were left on the land when it was donated to the city. The orchard is next to the river where we have enjoyed many visits in recent years. The photo demonstrates that there can be many beautiful natural views within a city.

We live in a condo in Fargo, and just before Christmas in 2022, a blanket of snow covered our driveway. I captured this image with my cell phone of our yard from my office window. I used Silver Efex to convert the image to black-and-white. That’s my challenge-response for this week. You can view the images in HD on my Flickr site here.

Thanks to Patti for this theme that allowed me to share so many beautiful views of my hometown. Last week’s Circular Wonders hosted by Ann-Christine was a fitting theme for mid-March when we celebrate Pi Day, March 14 (3.14), a fact I forgot to note in my response to the sort of holiday. Next week, Tina hosts. Be sure to follow her at Travels and Trifles so you don’t miss her challenge at noon on Saturday. If you’d like to participate in the challenge each week, but aren’t sure how to get started, you can get some help here.

John Steiner

This week, Ann-Christine’s challenge is Magical. She writes, “Now, Magical might mean so many different things to us, so – What is Magical to you? Special people, places, things; nature, adventures, childhood memories… – what are the ingredients you want there to make it magical?” You can read her entire challenge post here. Given that December hosts at least 11 holidays celebrated around the world, in addition to my photo response, I included a magical fairy tale to accompany the images.

The Festival of Holiday Magic

Once upon a time, in a small, picturesque town nestled in the heart of the mountains, there was a special holiday tradition known as the “Festival of Holiday Magic.” The townspeople eagerly awaited this event every year, for it was a time when the entire community came together to celebrate the joy, love, and wonder of the holiday season.

The festival began with the lighting of the town’s enormous holiday tree, which stood in the center of the town square. This tree was unlike any other; it was said to possess a touch of holiday magic. Legend had it that every year, the tree would grant one special wish to someone in the town who truly believed in the magic of the season.

This year, a young girl named Lily had a special wish in her heart. She wished for something that would bring happiness not only to herself but to her entire town. Lily was known for her kindness and compassion, and her wish was to ensure that no one in her town went without a warm meal, a cozy place to stay, or a smile during the holiday season.

Lily decided to embark on a journey of goodwill and began to spread holiday cheer throughout the town. She helped the elderly with their groceries, sang carols at the local nursing home, and even organized a toy drive for the less fortunate children. Her acts of kindness touched the hearts of everyone she met, and soon, her small acts of goodwill began to create a ripple effect of kindness throughout the town.

As the festival neared, the town square buzzed with excitement. Lily stood in front of the holiday tree, along with all the townspeople, holding their collective breath as the mayor flipped the switch to light the tree. A soft, golden glow enveloped the tree, and for a brief moment, it felt as though the entire town was bathed in a warm, magical light.

Then, something truly remarkable happened. A gentle, melodic chime rang through the crisp winter air, and a flurry of sparkling snowflakes danced around the tree. As the townspeople looked on in awe, they saw their wishes, written on little pieces of paper and tied to the tree’s branches, shimmer and come to life.

Lily’s wish, to ensure that no one in her town went without a warm meal, a cozy place to stay, or a smile during the holiday season, transformed into reality. The town’s community center was filled with the aroma of delicious holiday meals, a local inn opened its doors to those without shelter, and volunteers fanned out to bring comfort and joy to every corner of the town. It was as if the entire town had been wrapped in a warm, magical embrace.

The townspeople soon realized that Lily’s selfless acts of kindness had unlocked the true holiday magic within the tree, and it had granted her wish. The Festival of Holiday Magic became a testament to the power of spreading love and goodwill during the holiday season.

From that year forward, the town continued to celebrate the festival, but it was no longer just about the lighting of the tree; it was about coming together, sharing love, and creating magic for those in need. The holiday season became a time of year when the people of the town found joy in giving, and they learned that the true magic of the holidays lay in their hearts and in their capacity to make the world a better place through acts of kindness and compassion.

And so, in that little mountain town, the magic of the holidays continued to shine brightly, year after year, reminding everyone that the spirit of the season could bring warmth and happiness to all, just as long as they believed in the power of holiday magic.

The images above are from my gallery of holiday photos. You can pixel-peep in 2K HD and view photo metadata in my Flickr gallery here. Thanks to Ann-Christine for this week’s Magical challenge. Next week, Tina hosts.

Credit where credit is due: The story above was written by ChatGPT using only the prompt, “Tell me a story about Holiday Magic”.

John Steiner

At this year’s North Dakota Renaissance Faire, we enjoyed watching several performers, not the least of which was this duo. Obviously, we weren’t the only ones who enjoyed their music. This little guy was dancing with his mom for a while, then Daddy came up to keep an eye on him. After a few tentative steps, he reached the edge of the stage and stayed there for the song’s duration.

About the photo: Captured on my Samsung S23U, I exported the image into Luminar Neo after cataloging and basic edits in Lightroom. In Neo, I ran Supersharp, tweaked the Enhance AI tool, and added just a touch of structure. I cropped it square for use on Instagram, something I’ve been doing lately since rejoining the social network after a four-year hiatus. You’ll find me there as steinej2. To pixel-peep the photo in 2K HD, click on the image to view it on my Flickr account.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Fargo, North Dakota.

The 2nd annual North Dakota Renaissance Faire presented an opportunity to try out a new module in Luminar Neo. See the details in the About this photo section below. Lynn and I have only been to a couple of Renaissance Fairs, both of them in the Phoenix area. Though there is a major fair in the Minneapolis metro, we’ve never attended. Last year, King Caesar Productions brought their fair to Fargo. We were happy to attend and we enjoyed going with our daughter and grandson.

This year we were happy to see them back again, but as it turns out with a bit of controversy. I will tell that story in a future post featuring more images from the fair. In the meantime, here’s a teaser image of a match at the jousting tournament. Notice that there seem to be four jousters against one. The explanation? It’s a feature, not a bug.

About the photo: Recently Skylum Software added a new module to Luminar Neo that creates panoramic images from multiple images stitched together. While it’s nice to have the option in Neo, I’ve been using that feature in Adobe Lightroom Classic for a very long time. Here’s why I chose to use Neo to create this panorama.

Ukrainian-based Skylum software often thinks “outside the box” and they created an option for their panoramic module that steps out of the box and further. Instead of selecting several images to stitch together, you can choose a video instead. From that video, you can select the start and end points of the video that you’d like to include, and the module will stitch those frames together to create a single panoramic image. To try it out, I captured a couple of videos from the jousting match with my Samsung S23U cell phone.

Skylum’s developers didn’t just stop there with the module. They added a feature called Custom Object Composition. With this tool, you can scan through the video and select several frames to highlight a moving object. I chose to highlight the defeated jouster, the one moving right to left. I selected four frames and drew a box around the jouster as he progressed across the video. When Luminar Neo processed the frames into a panorama, it placed the highlighted subject into the image at the points I selected.

The screenshot above shows how easy the module is to use. The video started before the jousters were ready to go so I just moved the video start point to the right on the timeline. The leftmost blue square with the white dot indicates that I drew a frame around the jouster at the start of the video. The next blue square indicates I added a frame in the video. The third blue square is the current box where the two jousters meet in the center. I went on to add one more frame after the jouster lost the match and dropped his weapon. From there, I hit the Continue box and the program finished creating the panorama.

I have seen better examples of how to use this tool, but I was impressed at how well the program operates in this mode. When the panorama was created, I cropped the top and bottom to remove extraneous negative space and ran the Supersharp module and the Upscale module to add additional sharpness and detail to the image. You can click on the image above to view it in 2K HD via my Flickr site. I seldom take videos, but with this feature in mind, I will probably add them as I come across appropriate subjects.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Fargo, North Dakota.

In a previous post here I referenced the DeLendrecie Building, one of the most prominent buildings in Fargo’s commercial downtown history. In that post, I mentioned a personal connection to the building in my renting retail space there in an earlier century. The Delendrecie Building was one of the first department stores in the city. It was built in 1894 by Onesine Joassin DeLendrecie, a Canadian immigrant who saw the potential of Fargo as a commercial center.

Today’s Cellpic Sunday focuses on the small garden that was etched out of the sidewalk at the west side of the building. That white sign identifying the garden reads,
“VOTES FOR WOMEN
N.D. VOTES FOR WOMEN LEAGUE
OFFICE ON THIRD FLOOR OF
DELENDRECIE BLDG. 1912-1918.
SUFFRAGISTS WORKED HERE FOR
VOTING RIGHTS FOR WOMEN.”

That sign prompted me to read up on my North Dakota history to find out about the Suffragist movement in our state. The N.D. Votes for Women League was founded in 1912 by Mary Darrow Weible, Helen deLendrecie, and other women who were working to secure the right to vote for women in the state.

The League played a key role in the campaign for women’s suffrage in North Dakota. They organized rallies, held public meetings, and lobbied lawmakers. They also published a newsletter, The Suffragist, to keep members informed about the campaign.

In 1913, the organization helped to pass a bill that gave women the right to vote in municipal elections. This was a major victory, but it was not until 1917 that women in North Dakota were granted full suffrage.

Disbanded in 1920 after the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote nationwide, the guild’s work helped to pave the way for women’s suffrage in North Dakota and across the country.

About the photo: I captured the small garden on the west side of the building with my Samsung S23U. After loading the image into Luminar Neo, I applied my usual tweaks. In the original image, there was a car parked in the diagonal parking space immediately to the right of the garden. I could have erased it with Neo, in fact, I tried, but it was a messy removal. It would take a fair amount of time to clone the small piece of the automobile from the image.

Even though I have had lots of trouble using Adobe’s content-aware removal tool in Photoshop, I have watched several videos on YouTube where the tool is demonstrated and works flawlessly. After undoing the messy erasure in Neo, I sent the image to Photoshop and used Photoshop’s content-aware removal tool to highlight the small front end of the vehicle. The car disappeared perfectly. I then noticed a metal drain for water runoff built into the diagonal part of the curb on the street. Flushed with my success at removing the car, I highlighted the drain and it disappeared instantly. For the first time, I felt real success using Photoshop’s content-aware removal.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Fargo, ND.

Summer street fairs are a popular tradition in the United States. They are a great way to celebrate the warm weather, enjoy delicious food, and support small businesses, many of them local. Some are held weekly, some monthly, but most smaller fairs like Fargo’s, are held annually.

The weekend of July 13-15, 2023 brought over a hundred vendors and about 150,000 visitors to Fargo this year. About seven blocks of downtown Fargo’s Broadway are blocked off from vehicle traffic and the street is filled with tents and people.

Lynn and I were joined by our daughter and grandson and we started at the south end of the fair on Broadway. All along the way, buskers provided music to accompany our journey. At a booth featuring Native American products, a group was playing for the guests, a tip jar was available for our thank-you donation and CDs were available for purchase. We stopped and listened for a short time, I captured a quick photograph and left a tip answered with a nod and a “thank you” smile from the guitar player.

The majority of vendors at the Fargo Street Fair are peddling their crafted products. I picked a representative sample of crafters offering their products for sale. Steve creates metal yard ornaments that feature a light bulb with a solar cell at the bulb’s base. The fixture charges the internal battery during the day and the LED bulb lights the way at night.

Broadway is an excellent avenue for the street fair as along the way, visitors pass some of Fargo’s historic buildings. The Fargo Theatre is an art deco design. Opened at its downtown location on Broadway in 1926, the theater was restored in 1999 to its historic appearance and now is a center for the arts in the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area. The Fargo Theatre has a seating capacity of 870 people. The single-screen theater shows a variety of films, including independent, foreign, and classic films. The venue also hosts a variety of events, such as concerts, plays, and comedy shows.

Paul Peng proudly showed me his display of Banzai trees. The display was divided into areas that featured trees that grow best in sunlight (left side of the photo) and trees that do well in the shade (behind Paul on the right.)

One popular booth featured Pyrographer Laura Scheving. Laura is on the left enjoying a visit with a guest while other guests are looking at her display of artwork. You can click on the image above to view it via my Flickr site for a better look at her beautiful wood-burned art.

When I first saw her booth, Laura was busy working on a new project. I asked her what she called the type of art and she said, “Pyrography”. Even my simple brain put the two parts of the word together as a pyrotechnic photograph. In writing this post, I looked up the definition on Wikipedia here. “Pyrography or pyrogravure is the free handed art of decorating wood or other materials with burn marks resulting from the controlled application of a heated object such as a poker. It is also known as pokerwork or wood burning. The term means “writing with fire”, from the Greek pyr and graphos.“

Near the north end of the street fair, I captured this view of the Ford Building. It was built in 1915 as an assembly plant for Ford Motor Company. The building is located next to the Great Northern Railroad tracks for easy shipment of supplies and finished products. The third floor was the assembly plant. Approximately 75 people were employed here on opening day, and that number grew to about 200 when the building was fully staffed.

The Ford Motor Company ceased assembling cars here in 1927, but the factory continued to be used for other purposes. In 2009, the Ford Building was renovated and converted into office space and residential condominiums.

Alissa of Alikat Studios was busy drawing a caricature of a woman and likely her daughter. For these photos, I asked permission to photograph the vendor and in this case, I asked the subject of the artwork if it was OK to use the result of the artwork in my photograph. Permissions were freely given. I also asked each vendor I photographed if they wanted a copy of their image and I emailed photos without watermarks to those who requested. I got a follow-up request to use my photo on one of the vendor’s websites, and the license to do so was promptly provided.

Of course, fair food is the obligatory lunch or snack. We wisely wait until we’ve seen the entire street fair before choosing a place to be sure we select our lunch from the perfect vendor to enjoy some of that decadent fair food.

On Main Avenue, just a block west of Broadway, we walked by a building that has memories for me. For several years, I was a business partner with colleagues and ran a small computer store. At one point, we left our storefront on Main Avenue and moved into one of the spaces inside the Delendrecie Building.

The DeLendrecie Building was built in 1894 as a department store for O.J. DeLendrecie & Company. It is a four-story brick building and is one of the most recognizable buildings in the city. After DeLendrecie’s Department Store moved to the city’s largest mall, the building was used for a variety of purposes, including offices, apartments, and retail space. In 1987, the building was renovated and converted into a mixed-use development. It is now home to apartments, retail space, and a parking garage.

One note on the small garden in the foreground. It was created in honor of Suffragists. Details in an upcoming Cellpic Sunday. I have posted all of these photos in 2K HD on my Flickr site here for anyone who likes to pixel peep or find out the specifics of camera and lens combinations.

John Steiner

Davenport, North Dakota.

In mid-May this year, my blogger friend, Terri, posted a photo challenge about the color purple. That post is here. I mentioned in a comment to Terri that one of my favorite dominoes games is “Mexican Train.” I always grab the little purple train engine for my marker and I call it the “Purple Train” partly because of Prince’s song, Purple Rain. I’ve set the publication date for this Travel Tuesday post to June 6 as a further homage to Prince as his date of birth was June 7, 1958.

I remembered a photo I captured in June of 2017 of engine No. 261 out of Minneapolis, (Prince’s hometown,) while it was at Davenport North Dakota for a special excursion. I decided to rework the photo to create an image of a Purple Train to share with you. At the time I first worked on the photo in 2017, I used Luminar Flex, a predecessor to Luminar Neo to give the old steam engine a mystical look. That look was in part due to my use of an Orton Effect tool.

The train’s highly reflective surfaces looked blue because of the nearly cloudless sky. I realized that a rework of this image in Adobe Lightroom Classic would take but a few moments. I opened a virtual copy of the image in Lightroom. All I had to do was hit the HSL dropdown and find the blue hue control. I moved the slider about 50 percent to the right and stopped when I thought the image created a pleasing purple pigmentation (sorry for the alliteration >grin<.) For a look at the image in 2K HD, click on the photo to view it on my Flickr site.

As a concluding salute to Prince and his song “Purple Rain”, I asked ChatGPT to write a poem referencing the song and my image of the purple train engine. Here is the poem generated by the AI tool:

In the land where melodies reign,
A tale unfolds, the Purple Train.
Its rhythm carries souls afar,
Guided by the midnight star.

With wheels adorned in violet hue,
It glides upon the tracks so true.
A symphony in motion, it’s seen,
A tribute to the song, Purple Rain.

Its whistle echoes through the night,
A haunting call, a timeless flight.
Passengers board, hearts light with glee,
Seeking solace in the melody.

Inside the carriages, dreams reside,
Bound together, side by side.
Eyes enchanted by the cosmic glow,
As Purple Rain’s enchantment does bestow.

Through valleys deep and mountains high,
The Purple Train takes to the sky.
Whispering secrets in every gust,
Love, loss, and dreams they discuss.

With every station, stories unfold,
Tales of passion, fierce and bold.
In every heart, a purple flame,
Ignited by the Purple Train.

Oh, Prince, your legacy lives on,
In melodies that dance at dawn.
The Purple Train, a tribute divine,
A journey through the grand design.

So, come aboard, dear dreamer true,
Let the Purple Train carry you.
To lands where music reigns supreme,
And love’s transcendent, like a dream.

Thanks for humoring me on my three-part experiment with ChatGPT. This post is a tome in honor of the Artist Formerly Known as Prince on his birthdate week. I am updating this post on May 26 to acknowledge the loss of another musical legend, Tina Turner, who departed from this world earlier this week.

Next week, in the final part of my ChatGPT experiment, I ask ChatGPT to write a short story to accompany my photo illustrations. Comments on the photo, the post, or the poem are welcome. What do you think?

John Steiner

Fargo, North Dakota.

In mid-December, a significant winter storm dumped three total days of snow almost everywhere as it traveled from California to the east coast. As this is written in my office today, it’s day two of snow here in Fargo. Fortunately, so far the winds have been light, and the snowfall coming in batches. The snow is forecast to be 8 inches or more by the end of the week, but so far we haven’t seen anywhere near that much.

About the photo: The view outside my office window looks onto our parking lot and the apartment garages for the buildings on the next street to the north, so the view isn’t particularly photogenic. All the same, the freshly fallen snow looks nice on the trees and bushes, and except for some traffic on the driveways, the snow is undisturbed. I captured the view with my Samsung S20U. It was imported into Lightroom Classic appearing mostly devoid of color. I decided that it would look nice in a sepia tone and sent it off to Silver Efex 3 for black-and-white conversion. Click on the image above to view it in 2K HD on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

North Dakota.

This week’s challenge is hosted by Tina of Travels and Trifles. She writes, “If a foreigner were to spend a week or a month traveling your home country with you, where would you take them? What sights would you tell them to be sure to see? Where have you found some of your own favorite images? What is it you truly love about where you live, or places you’ve seen in your home country?” You can read her entire challenge post here.

While I have many images from 32 of the states I’ve visited in our great country, I will imagine my foreign friends only have a week to visit, and I plan to give them a grand tour of my home state, North Dakota. Of course, in that week, their visit can’t comprise the entire range of seasons, but I will take some liberties in that I can use some artistic license to show images of the state in more than one season. For my opening image, I feature a late summer night in my home city of Fargo where I’ve lived and worked in the area for over 40 years.

North Dakota is bordered on the west by Montana, on the south by South Dakota, and on the east by Minnesota. The state’s northern boundary is an International border as our neighbor to the north is Canada. In fact, at over 5,500 miles (8850 km), the U.S./Canadian border is the longest international border in the world. North Dakota alone has 18 international border crossings, all in the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Probably the most celebrated border crossing in our state is at Dunseith, where there is a joint Manitoba/North Dakota project that celebrates the friendship between our two countries in the form of the International Peace Garden.

The 26th president of the United States lived and ranched for a time in western North Dakota. Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, in his own words noted, “I have always said I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.”

The state’s only national park was named in his honor and over half a million visitors spend time in at least one of the three park units each year. The image above features a family of bison that live in the park. Somehow I get the impression that the large male bison is looking at me as yet another picture-taking tourist. He’s sticking his tongue out at me in disgust, I imagine.

The badlands of North Dakota extend south across our border with South Dakota. This panoramic image doesn’t do justice to the majesty and natural beauty of this part of my home state. Visitors need only stop at the Painted Canyon Rest Area and visitor center at exit 32 on Interstate 94 to capture views like this, spend some time hiking on a nearby trail or two, and generally enjoy our state’s wonderful scenic views.

Forty miles east of the Painted Canyon Rest Area on I-94 at exit 72, don’t miss the opportunity to drive the Enchanted Highway. The image above is a scrap metal design and is only one of many sculptures built along the road by Gary Greff, a longtime resident of Regent, North Dakota, some 32 miles (51 km) down the Enchanted Highway from the Interstate. The image, unfortunately, doesn’t have a size reference. That blue and white “sunken” boat on the left is probably 10 feet (3 m) in height.

Christmas in North Dakota is not without its own ghost stories. This abandoned house is one of the few remnants of Sims, North Dakota. At one time, the town of Sims in Morton County was home to some 1,200 residents. As the story goes, there is only one resident in the town, the Gray Lady of Sims who haunts the parsonage next door to the oldest Luthern church in western North Dakota. The house in the image above is not the parsonage, but it is probably the most photographed building in Sims judging by a web search of Sims ND images. Of course, I had to include my own interpretation of the farmhouse.

At Abraham Lincoln State Park near Mandan, North Dakota, docents in period costumes commemorate a famous U.S. Army General who saddled his mount and rode into history along with the men of the U.S. Seventh Calvary. On May 17, 1876, the commanding General of Fort Abraham Lincoln, George Armstrong Custer, and his regiment headed west into Montana Territory. On June 25, 1876, he and his entire regiment were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn by a coalition of Native American tribes. General Custer and his wife Libbie lived on the fort during his command starting in 1873. The battle was written down in many history books as Custer’s Last Stand.

Valley City, North Dakota is known as the City of Bridges with several pedestrian, vehicle, and railroad bridges crossing the winding Sheyenne River within and around the city in the valley. One of the largest railroad bridges in the country is the Highline bridge completed in 1908 to carry freight and passengers across the wide expanse of the Sheyenne River valley. The 3860-foot (1,180m), span gently lifts trains to the higher terrain on the western edge of Valley City. At its highest point, the bridge rises 162 feet (49 m) above the valley floor. This image is a panoramic view of the bridge captured by my drone on the other side of the Sheyenne River.

North Dakota is primarily an agricultural state and at the edge of a field, a North Dakota farmer paid homage to the history of the steam thresher. His collection of steam thrashers winds uphill from the roadside to a nearby hilltop. That farmer has passed on, but his family honors his memory by keeping the collection open to visitors. Dinosaurs of the Prairie is but a few minutes’ drive from the community of Napoleon, North Dakota, and a little more than an hour’s drive from the state capitol at Bismarck. This image was captured with my drone on an early October day.

North Dakota has its own version of a modern Stonehenge. Near the Canadian border at Bottineau, Mystical Horizons features an astronomical calendar that consists of pillars that replicate the functions of Stonehenge in England. These three slotted pillars are lined up with slots in the curved wall on the left in the image. On the appropriate days of the year, the sun is visible through the combined slots as sunset approaches.

North Dakota is known for its harsh but beautiful winters. Truth is, since I retired, I’ve spent most of my recent winters in warmer climates. We’ve usually been home for Christmas and in 2015, after a beautiful day in Fargo, I made a visit to the river that borders our state with Minnesota on the east. Click on any of the images above for a view in HD, or visit the gallery in my Flickr album here.

Thanks again to Tina for giving us the opportunity to share photographs of the places we call home. Next week, Patti hosts the first challenge in December as we begin the 12th month of challenges in 2022. If you’d like to join in the fun each week, check here for details.

John Steiner

Somewhere in North Dakota.

This week Amy celebrates the sun that gives us life and brightens our days. There are billions of suns in the universe. Still, only one is close enough for us to have become a routine part of our daily existence in more ways than being responsible for the planet’s continuing existence as we know it.

Amy writes, “We will explore the sunlight and things under the sun, whether it’s in the morning, middle of the day, and/or before sun goes down.” You can find her entire challenge post here.

For my challenge response, I will mostly focus on those summer days when we have the longest time to enjoy the sun. Around the time of the summer solstice in June each year, North Dakotans enjoy an average of almost 16 hours to enjoy the sun. In my opening photo, even though we can’t see the sun through those layers of clouds, its light is shining across Turtle River State Park appearing to ignite the trees.

This beautiful antique aircraft is mimicking the color of the sun as if to say, “It’s time to share the morning skies with you, Mr. Sun.” The airplane is about the same age as I am. The Cessna model 195 was manufactured between 1947 and 1954. Cessna’s first aircraft with all-aluminum construction was available in both civilian and military versions.

At Valley City, the Hi-Line Bridge has carried railroad traffic since 1908, and it still is in use today. At the time of construction, it was the longest bridge of its height in the world. Today, at 3,860 feet (1,180 m) long and 162 feet (49 m) over the Sheyenne River Valley, it remains one of the longest and highest bridges in continued use in the United States. Early one morning, positioned so the bridge shielded my camera lens from the morning sun, I captured this image of the eastern ascent where it rises toward its maximum height over the Sheyenne River.

Just east of the town of Napoleon, North Dakota is a tribute to a modern “dinosaur”, the threshing machine. A local farmer, John “Custer” Grenz gathered a collection of steam threshing machines. He lined them up in a row on his farm and even though he has passed on, his family honors his memory by continuing to share his collection with the public. The sun was responsible for helping to grow the crops, and the threshing machine was responsible for helping to harvest them.

Even with hazy skies, the morning sun reflected gold off of the brick facade of this house in the ghost town formerly Sims.

Sunflowers are a major crop in North Dakota. This view from my drone was captured in the late afternoon. When sunflowers are young, their heads turn to follow the sun as it travels across the sky every day. When the plants mature, however, the heads are too heavy to turn. In this image, the heads are facing easterly even though the late afternoon sun is just off to the left side of this view that is looking to the northwest.

In that same field about an hour later, the sun much closer to the horizon, I captured this portrait of a sunflower. I know I’ve shared this image in challenges before, but humor me. It’s one of my all-time favorite images.

I would be remiss in not including a winter image, especially considering winters are so long in North Dakota. This is a view from the front steps of a friend’s home on Christmas day in 2017.

Thanks to Amy for her challenge that allowed me to share some of my favorite sunny images of North Dakota. To view any of these images in HD on my high-definition Flickr site, just click on it. Or you can view and scroll through the entire album in HD here. Next week, for the last challenge in August, it’s Ann-Christine’s turn to provide the theme. If you’ve been considering joining the challenge each week, but aren’t sure how to get started, you can find out here.

John Steiner