Fargo, North Dakota.

This week, Anne shares her love of her hometown and features images in the challenge she titled, “Local Vistas.” She writes, “What are your local vistas? Where do you photograph when you don’t have a lot of time or are not on vacation? What about your hometown excites you? Is it the countryside, city, gardens, amusement venues? This week, tell us about and show us your local vistas.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

I’ve lived and worked in the Fargo area for over 30 years, and it is our forever hometown. We make jokes about the North Dakota winters, and it’s no secret that we head south each year after retiring and no longer need to spend the coldest part of the year in sub-zero cold. Still, some of my favorite images were captured in the cold. One of my favorite places to visit is along the shore of the Red River of the North. The triptych below features images captured along the river that separates North Dakota from Minnesota.

The image above was captured in December a few years ago. It was taken on the Minnesota side of the river at a small parking area.

This image was captured from my drone and taken from the vantage point of the same park as the winter scene above. From this angle, it’s easy to see the small dam that is less noticeable in the winter image.

I’ve shared the third image of this triptych in color more than once, so for this challenge, I decided to share it after conversion to black-and-white. This site is from a park on the North Dakota side of the river a few miles south of the first two river shots.

Not far from our condo, there is a pioneer village that focuses on the Bonanza Farms that proliferated in the late 19th century. Several buildings from North Dakota were moved to Bonanzaville to create a community of historic structures that might otherwise have been lost to history. Dawson Hall is a theater that still offers live plays each year due to the support of a local theater group. I will admit to having found myself in some of the plays as a former member of the group.

Every year, I enjoy the fall harvest and enjoy traveling the section roads that divide the agricultural parcels. One of North Dakota’s most prolific products is also one of the most beautiful to photograph. Sunflower fields are easy to find on a country drive in our local area. This image was captured with the camera in my drone.

The night sky in the North Dakota countryside is dark enough to show off the billions of stars each clear evening. Since we were still in the blue hour when this image was captured, it wasn’t yet dark enough to get a true photo of the number of stars visible in our night sky. This photo is best viewed from my Flickr site where it is displayed on a black background. Click on it to see it there.

Our communities share a minor league baseball team, the Red Hawks. Every year we are sure to attend a few games to enjoy the sights and sounds of America’s National Pasttime.

Regular readers have come to expect a reference to aviation in many of my posts. Here’s a view of rural North Dakota about 17 miles (27 km) west of Fargo. This image was captured in mid-August while I was a passenger in a glider being towed to altitude for eventual release.

One of my favorite city parks is Lindenwood. One day I took my camera and lens ball to the park to experiment with it. My favorite image from that day of shooting is this image of the fountain and garden near the main entrance to the park.

While this image could have been captured with my drone, it wasn’t. I was in the back seat of a rented aircraft while a friend of mine was flying. Though the details are lost in the shade, my condo is on the bottom floor in the center of the building. The chimney stack closest to the lawn and parking area is for the fireplace units in my unit and the unit above mine.

To view the images in HD on my Flickr site, you can click on any image, or you can view the entire album here. Thanks to Anne for this challenge that allows everyone to share a bit of their local area. Next week we have a guest host for challenge #204. If you’d like to join in on our challenge but aren’t quite sure how to get started, click here.

John Steiner