{"id":8204,"date":"2024-09-04T06:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=8204"},"modified":"2024-09-04T18:18:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T23:18:11","slug":"cleaning-the-undercarriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=8204","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning the undercarriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/08\/fallen_farm_15271-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/08\/fallen_farm_15271-3.png 500w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/08\/fallen_farm_15271-3-150x100.png 150w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/08\/fallen_farm_15271-3-452x300.png 452w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>This old house is one of the few remaining parts of the ghost town of Trotters, which was one of the Bucket List destinations I finally reached this summer.  You aren&#8217;t likely to find this house without The Google or a drone, however.  It&#8217;s visible for an instant as you head up the highway, but it&#8217;s easy to miss.  I&#8217;d surveyed the area from above before heading out here, though, and assessed whether it was accessible once I got there.  But there was something I hadn&#8217;t counted on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The weeds on the center of the double-track trail heading back to this building were <strong>tall<\/strong>.  As such, they did a great job of buffing the bottom of the car!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/09\/church_15519-21.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/09\/church_15519-21.png 500w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/09\/church_15519-21-150x100.png 150w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2024\/09\/church_15519-21-450x300.png 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>This is another example. The road here doesn&#8217;t technically exist any more, but it&#8217;s there&#8230;under a blanket of thick weeds, when it isn\u2019t covered by water.  The weeds are as high as the hood of my truck, so as I crept down the \u201croad\u201d in first gear (God bless manual transmissions!) they scrubbed the bottom of the truck thoroughly. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I didn\u2019t really think anything of it until I got back from my photo trip and did a quick vehicle inspection.  The sway bar in the front was such a shiny black that I thought it was wet from a fluid leak!  It wasn\u2019t until I got underneath and checked it out that I realized that the powder coat had been polished from rubbing on a mile or so of thick, hearty North Dakota weeds!  That sure was handy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully, the areas I visited didn\u2019t have a high fire danger index. In the age of incredibly hot catalytic converters, I am extra mindful of the dangers of allowing those tall weeds to be ignited by prolonged contact with a hot cat. When conditions are favorable for fire, I don\u2019t go anywhere near tall weeds or grasses with my vehicles.  Thankfully in these instances I was safe from any chance of that\u2026and I got a free cleaning, to boot!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This old house is one of the few remaining parts of the ghost town of Trotters, which was one of the Bucket List destinations I finally reached this summer. You aren&#8217;t likely to find this house without The Google or &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=8204\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8204"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8208,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8204\/revisions\/8208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}