The lake at the east OWLS site has undergone a makeover, so there isn’t as much plant life along the shore. I expect that to change very quickly. Even without it, the damselflies are raiding the rocks along the shore, and they’re quite willing to be photographed! Go check them out when the storms pass.
One thing that’s nice about a relic like this being hidden in rural North Dakota is that people are less likely to pry parts off of it for eBay! Although I notice that the trim rings are gone and the hood is open. To investigate further would have meant hopping a fence line, and I didn’t have permission to be there. No worries, I was in perfect position to get the photos I wanted, and this is one of them.
When I got there I got a nice tower, the buttes, and a reflection off of the river…all lined up for the taking! I had to stand on top of the truck to get the shot I wanted, but that’s never stopped me before. It feels good to get a nice sunset photo, something that I’d been known for in the past but have had a hard time getting in recent memory. Part of it is that I’m a husband and a dad, and sunsets are occurring later and later in the day. The other reason is that the rains with which we’ve been blessed lately also block out the sun. I’m more than happy to go without blazing sunsets for a while in order to get that rain!
The trip took me to a few different trail heads north of Mandan. Not only did I visit the Square Buttes from the western side of the river, but I also stopped in to visit my friends who are setting up for the Price Hare Scramble race, which sadly I won’t be entering because of church. I wish those things were held on Saturdays! Then I ventured north to the Cross Ranch State Park for a bit, taking photos along the way.
The pictures I got were pretty cool, I’ll probably be posting them over the next few days. In my opinion, the land north of Mandan is some of the most beautiful country North Dakota has to offer, especially now that everything is so green. It’s a long drive on a thumping dirt bike, but that makes it easy to deal with the gravel road and the dirt trails! The last thing I wanted to do when I got back, however was sit down…
Today they’re having a fishing day to kick off the year, and promise the possibility of catching any number of fish species. They’ve got bluegill, trout, bass…you name it, apparently they’ve stocked it! This is a catch-and-release area, by the way. I often see people bring their children out to fish from the floating bridge as an introduction to fishing, and it’s a great place to enjoy an afternoon with a hook in the water. It’s in town, it’s well maintained, and it’s a nice place in general.
Last year this lake was groomed, if that’s the correct word; the low water levels made it an opportune time to come in with heavy equipment and scoop all the slimy muck out of the bottom of the lake while regrading the shoreline. There are other habitat items here such as gravel beds, shelves carved into the bottom, and sunken culverts to help aid in the spawning processes of the various fish. It looks like everything went very well, the area around the lake is tilled and seeded, and we’re set to have a really nice OWLS site. We even got the rain we needed to help bring the water level up!
Apparently this was a Code Pink member’s truck, judging by the pink shirts they wore and the pink spray paint. There were, however, stickers for all the usual leftist wackjob causes: abortion, impeachment, feminism, environmentalism, unions…the works. That is no surprise; organizations like these tend to champion each others’ causes in a lockstep leftist way. The tie that binds is liberalism itself, and everybody’s got their agenda. I didn’t see any pro-illegal immigration or “legalize weed” stickers, but I didn’t look that closely. Maybe they were on the other side of the truck.
What these groups have in common is that they each champion their own sin, basically. You have the envy that leads to class warfare, that encompasses the communists and the pro-union folks. There’s the drug legalization crowd of course, and the pro-abortion people. There are the rabid environmentalists which worship creation rather than Creation (Romans chapter 1), which is idolatry. The ones crying racism? Well, they’re just plain liars: they don’t want racism to ever go away, because the perception of racism is their empowerment. So they all band together into the ragtag bunch we call the modern Anti-American Left.
Code Pink, by the way, is an organization started by a Wiccan witch who calls herself “Starhawk”, communist activist Medea Benjamin (who was radical enough to even be forcibly removed from a DNC convention in 2004), environmental activist Jodie Evans (who also sits on the board of an environmental activist network that teaches people how to sit in trees etc.), and career protester Diane Wilson, who got herself thrown in jail for criminal trespassing and then used it as a springboard to claim human rights violations while incarcerated. It’s quite a bunch.
Groups like this one have quite a network going; founders and board members of one group are quite likely to hold rank in others as well. A site called Discover the Networks is helpful in trying to figure out just exactly who these people are, who’s paying their bills, and what they really stand for.
This brings me back to the Eyes Wide Open exhibit that was sponsored by the ND Peace Coalition. I still have my copy of the flyer they were handing out at the event. It’s got links to Code Pink and other groups including:
American Friends Service Committee: supported Vietnamese Communists, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, and the PLO
Gold Star Families for Peace: starring that buffoon, Cindy Sheehan, who loves Hugo Chavez, the dictator currently nationalizing assets and shutting down opposition media in Venezuela
I’d list more, but these people frankly aren’t worth your time or mine. Having spoken to Karen Van Fossan, the local contact for the ND Peace Coalition, I’m convinced she’s a really nice person…just as deluded as the day is long if she believes this stuff. I asked her about Code Pink’s ties to communists, and she appeared surprised and denied it. But even casual research at all into these groups finds otherwise, so I suspect either the ND Peace Coalition folks are completely oblivious…or they’re lying.
In any case, when you see those white “PEACE” banners that NDPC members put in their yards, just think of these radical groups and remember who’s behind those little white signs. It can be said that you can tell a lot about people by their friends. The friends of the North Dakota Peace Coalition are among the most radical anti-American, anti-capitalist groups you can imagine. Before lending them any credibility, check out the people they associate with and endorse in their own flyers.
I took a diversion through Sibley Park because I remembered seeing an owl kill and fly off with a snake there last year. Of course it happened before I could get the camera ready! Ever since, I like to take a cruise through there occasionally to see if I can spot Mr. Owl again. No such luck, by the way. Anyway, on my way out of the park I saw those flashing lights: the deputy had caught himself a speeder. Stealth…what an ally. Unless, you’re the leadfoot, that is!
In this picture, a second sheriff’s dept. car had shown up. It’s a lot easier to see with two of them. Apparently it’s like a good fishin’ hole…when they’re biting, other fishermen are likely to show up!
I sure would like to know what they were rinsing off the road…wouldn’t you?
Like many sports, I didn’t discover how much fun they were until late in high school. Nevertheless, I did do pretty darn well at the 800, 1600, 3200, and 3200 relay my senior year. In Mandan we would start our season by running laps around the hallway surrounding the gym, then the distance runners would run laps around the city. I miss those days. Having torn my knee in half (twice) in various motorcycle and mountain bike accidents, I don’t do long distance running anymore. I still can, but it’s best to keep the “wear and tear due to mileage” down, if you know what I mean.
But where do you get a guy to do flagpole repair on a holiday weekend? Good question. If I had a cherry picker I’d rig something up, but that would probably result in my arrest. I would hope that someone would go to whatever lengths necessary to get Old Glory back where it belongs, especially in time for Memorial Day. You’ve got 48 hours, folks…let’s make it happen!
By the way, it didn’t look to me like the flag pole had been sabotaged or vandalized. My guess was that the recent high winds probably broke something up top that was near failure and finally broke. Maybe the North Dakota Peace Coalition was trying to run a white flag up the pole and broke it! I don’t know. In any case, I just hope they get it fixed. It’s really embarassing to have the flag missing from the state capitol during the Memorial Day holiday.