Category Archives: Vehicles

For sale: one low-mileage cow, rear wheel drive, $500

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“Interesting trades considered?” No, I didn’t see that on the sign…it’s just that I’m a Seinfeld fan, and have to put that in there. This interesting item was parked along the highway and merited a second look. I’m not sure if it’s a two-seater or what kind of mileage it gets. If you have any questions, contact me and I’ll give you the phone number.

Something you don’t see in Bismarck every day

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I love Ferrari automobiles. Cars as a general rule are pretty lame and boring, but not those fancy Italian machines. So when a guy is out taking pictures and spots a bright yellow 355 Spyder sitting there, that’s an event. Not only are such cars a little rare in western North Dakota, that yellow is very eye-catching.

Of course, even driving around in the truck with my open camera bag on the passenger seat can’t prepare me for every picture. There was a time in Sibley Park where I glanced over to see an owl taking off with a snake in its claws…there just wasn’t time to get the camera steady before he’d flown off. The same situation happened with this Italian machine.

This is the picture I actually got. Street signs are quite useful but tend to get in the way whenever a guy tries taking pictures downtown. No worries…it’s removable quickly and easily. But with all the buzz about Photoshopped pictures in the mainstream media these days, I like to be open about mine. There’s a great sense of satisfaction in getting a unique photograph, and I’d hate to have any speculation about whether any of mine are real. There are plenty of sites you can go to for doctored photographs…this is not one of them.

I miss Perman’s

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This former Sinclair station fades into obscurity along east Main Avenue in Bismarck. While it’s not really in prime real estate now, this station had a long history. And, after paying six bucks a gallon for race fuel the other day, I miss it more than ever.

I bet that local motorheads all miss Perman’s for a variety of reasons, the most recent of which is the fact that they sold VP race fuel right at the pump. A guy could whip into the station with a trailer of bikes and gas ’em up right there, fill the spare cans, and put normal gas into the truck as well. And it was at a very nice price…of course, even regular street gas was priced pretty low the last time I was able to fill up at Perman’s.

Nowadays the options for race fuel are more expensive, and a guy can’t do it himself. I don’t know of many other store operators that would be willing to allocate one of their tanks to VP, Power 110, or the Turbo Blue that I use. The next nearest that comes to mind is in Brainerd, right outside the track.

I have a friend / former coworker who’s an old motorhead from way back… I suppose I can say the 1960’s if I don’t mention his name. He remembers the station from a long time back as well. While I don’t have the long chain of memories of the place, I share his sentiment in missing an establishment that provided a service for us performance-minded types that few would.

Say…if there are any Wannenbergs reading this post… does it give you any ideas? Please?

Big digger

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I got to see something you don’t find everyday while traveling north of Beulah the other day. A very large piece of equipment was making a slow, steady journey from one part of the Coteau mine to the other…what made it interesting was that it had to cross the highway. How does something so big, with enormous metal tracks, pull that off?

The first neat thing you should know is that this baby’s electric. Yes, that’s right…no engine. See that trailer being pulled behind it by the road grader? That’s a generator, a very large one at that…it’s kicking out enough DC current to drive that behemoth.

Now that’s a big extension cord! The operator of the grader gets to pull the generator just fast enough to keep up with the guy in front of him and maintain slack in the cable. Once they reach their destination at the other part of the mine, they’ll plug into a cable running back to the power plant. In the case of a “mine mouth” power plant such as this one, where the mine is located adjacent to the mine from which its coal is supplied, the power plant itself drives the diggers. That goes for those big draglines that you see from the highway as well as a smaller (yet still huge) digger like this one.

The section of road they cross is made of concrete, not asphalt; otherwise it wouldn’t survive something like this. Even so, they have big rubber mats that they pull across the road using a little skidsteer loader. I call it little because it isn’t even as tall as the track on that thing. See it down there in the foreground?

Anyway, they have a couple of trucks hold highway traffic from either direction, inch this thing across the road, and pull the mats back over to the side until they’re needed again. The whole process takes several minutes…a machine that large still moves very slowly.

I would have loved to have seen them take the big dragline crane across Highway 83 when they did that a while back…those don’t have tracks, they have giant feet that “walk” from one place to the next. Oh, and the cord is a lot bigger, too! They have a tractor dedicated just to tugging that cord around behind the dragline as it moves. Someday I’ll get pictures of that, too.

Bike to Work Week this week in Bismarck

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Time to get healthy! I have yet to really get into the routine of biking to work; in fact, it’s only been a couple of times this year. But this week should be extra motivation for all of us to push a pair of pedals other than the accelerator and brakes! This is Bike to Work Week in Bismarck.

Riding to work always seems so easy to do, yet so hard to get motivated for. I like to run around with my camera or run errands after work, so it’s better to be on my motorcycle or in my truck. But that bike isn’t riding itself; I’ve gotta start doing it. I’ve got just under 2,800 miles on this bike and a little over 2,000 on my other one…let’s just say that under a hundred of those miles have taken place in the past year. So perhaps riding to work would help me get back in the swing of things!

The week is organized by Activate Bismarck-Mandan, a program run by the YMCA. You can find read their announcement and browse their website by clicking here.

Trifecta!

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Finally! I knew this car was out there, but never had the opportunity for a photo. In fact, I haven’t seen this car since I got my camera…until Tuesday. What a work of art (and patriotism)! Call it what you will, hate it or love it, but you must admit this is a unique vehicle.

In the past I’m sure you’ve seen my posts about the 4×4 Mercedes :

and of course, the 4×4 Firebird :

And the acquisition of the Cadillac photo completes the trifecta. Or the hat trick, if you happen to be a UND Fighting Sioux Hockey fan. I know we’ve got a bunch of those out there!

DMVW railroad practices mosquito control

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On my way to east Bismarck on Wednesday, I came over the hill by the Coke plant to see the whole area awash in a foggy haze. I thought it truly was fog until I saw this:

The DMVW railroad was warming up a couple of diesel-electric locomotives. There were actually two pairs but only this pair was smoking. I wonder who checked the oil? You could check it by sticking a finger in the air. It smelled like it was synthetic, too…that can’t be cheap. Or environmentally friendly!

This guy sure can drive…and scoop rocks

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These photos were taken by my friend Jerry on Tuesday. They’re wild enough that I just had to post them here. His email said:

Driving to Minot yesterday and at Coleharbor the Soo line train was loaded with big rocks. Driving around on the top of the boxcars and rocks was a backhoe that was scooping them out. He was actually able to drive from car to car scooping rocks. I did not see a ramp or anything to get up on top.

A guy’s gotta be talented and nuts to pull off something like that. Hats off to whoever’s perched atop that train car, scooping rocks into a truck. They certainly are taking it to the next level!

SOLD! Probably because of the video

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If you watch Speed Channel and happened to catch the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction (they covered it for three days), you may have seen one of our local boys selling a car there. Dave Ressler, of Ressler Chevrolet, has bought and sold a number of cars at this show. This year his pride ‘n’ joy is this 1954 Corvette. It sold for $99,000!

The announcers had a good time with this deal because Dave always brings a sportcoat matching the paint color of the car and includes it in the deal. The high bidder gets the coat draped over his shoulders until he’s outbid. In this case the coat only changed hands (shoulders) a couple of times before the auction was completed. But the bidding went higher and higher for three or four minutes!

I was especially interested in this sale, which I caught on TV by accident, because I edited a promotional video for this car late last year. The video was produced to run on a flat panel display next to the car while potential bidders inspected the cars prior to auction. It detailed Dave’s history, his passion for Corvettes, hiscollection, and the work put into this particular car. I don’t know if it had any impact on the auction, but it sure helped show that Dave’s not just some schmuck with a car to sell…he’s a true Corvette enthusiast.