That reference probably makes me a huge nerd, but whatever. Tolkien was a genius, and I love his work. That's another post, though.
This past weekend I took a trip with one of my friends and fellow RAs to a town called Bottineau. It's in North Dakota, near the border of Canada, and it's basically podunk nowhere.
You see my friend had a history project that required him to find a monument in North Dakota that nobody in the class had researched and research it. That, in turn, required him to go and see the actual monument. Hence the trip.
It's roughly a five hour drive to Bottineau, a fairly large undertaking, and I didn't really want to make him do it by himself, so I decided to give up a weekend in Bemidji to go with him. It wasn't exactly my first choice of things to do with my weekend, but being there for your friends is important to me so I sucked it up and went.
While it was a long drive, and while I may have had more fun per second doing something else, it wasn't the worst trip I've ever been on by a long shot.
Kinda last minute, we picked up another RA and friend (Ethan) who lives near Minot, not that far from Bottineau. That way, instead of making the trip all in one day, we drove to Ethan's house and met his family. They were about the nicest people you could imagine, and it was fun to meet them all. I'd even heard legends about the ever present nacho makings that reside in Ethan's household and, true to form, Ethan's mother made a big pan of them for us to munch on.
Yum.
On the road, we found various ways to amuse ourselves. One of these ways was a service called ChaCha. Basically, you text a question to the sight and they have a bunch of people who Google your question and see if they can find an answer. It's no encyclopedia, but you can get some pretty hilarious answers if you get the right people and ask the right question. You can also get answers that are useful. For example, we were driving back to Fargo and wondering what was in the dining center that night, so we texted ChaCha asking for the menu of the Residence Dining Center at NDSU, and the guy found it! We were all very impressed .
We also asked ChaCha if Cookie Monster cries himself to sleep ever night because he eats veggies now instead of cookies. Some answers we got were lame (we asked multiple times, and a different person answers each time), but the winner was the guy whose answer involved cookie rehab and cookie monster being caught melting down cookie down in a spoon. Golden.
The most important thing I saw on this trip, though, was the beginning of the end. That's right, the world as we know it does not have much time left. Do you know why? Let me show you...
Exhibit A:
Click on the picture and look closely. Do you know what all those little white lines in the background are? That's right...Windmills. *dramatic music*
Windmills you say? What's so bad about windmills?
See Exhibit B:
When I first read this comic(thank you xkcd), I thought it was a funny joke. Then I saw them.Late at night, a single red light pulsates atop each mighty sentinel, it's scarlet gaze watching the world below and waiting. Waiting for its chance to break its terrestrial chains and stride across the land, crushing all that oppose it. Waiting... for the robot wars to begin.
But no really, late at night, red lights on top all of the windmills flash in unison and put out this eerie glow. It's totally creepy.
My final story on this ridiculously long post is a short one. We were driving through the city (and I use that term loosely) of Rugby, and were pulling up to a stop by a stop sign. Suddenly, a tumbleweed rolls across the road. We all blinked in stunned amazement and watched the tumbleweed travel it's course. Then we all burst out laughing. I promptly started singing The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly theme. I even managed to catch a picture of it out the back window as we drove away.
That's the tumbleweed by the red car there. We figured out later that it was probably some kind of wreath or something and not a true tumbleweed, but still... nothing screams that your in Nowhere, ND like seeing a tumbleweed on the road.Overall, it was a trip that I don't regret making. I had some fun and I was able to help out a friend. If the need ever arises for you to help out a friend even though you would rather spend your time some other way, I'd say go help your friend out. In my experience, it usually works out to be a pretty good time.
Until next time, though, hope you survive the robot war!
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