Stars Stripes and Albino Buffalo

Welcome to North Dakota
 

Prairie scenery just north of Minot

Friday, Day 3

1:18 PM, Jamestown ND

I can’t remember the last time I stood under a sixty-ton buffalo. Probably because I haven’t before, until we stopped here in Jamestown today. Before us, stationed above a valley of rolling ridges, a 46 foot long concrete buffalo—declared by a nearby sign to be the world’s largest—stood keeping watch over the adjacent tourist historical village. A small herd of much shorter, much livelier buffalo (including one bright white albino one) grazed in the valley below, their furry tales swatting flies in near unison.

I Spy: albino American bison

A sign by the field in which the above herd grazed.

Hungry after all the wildlife viewing, we pulled into a local location of a pizza chain we discovered in Minot last night. This time, however, we managed to snag their lunch very similar to the one Pizza Hut hosts. I just want to say that almost everything there today contained bacon. Even the vegetables. They were really good—as was the unbelievably flavourful southern fried chicken! Which brings us to our…

List of the Day:

One of the funnest things about being in the States, besides eating chicken and trying new resteraunts, is noticing how many differences begin to pop up immediately after crossing the border.  Subtle things have changed, sometimes where you least expected changes to occur. Consider…

-Hotel breakfasts:  ours starred biscuits and gravy--a staple combo here that doesn’t occur in Canada-- and involved blue Fruitloops. (Canadian fruitloops skip that colour, going straight from green to purple.)

-Chocolate bars: the colours in the lettering of the Kit Kat logo, my brother pointed out, are reversed. Also, chocolate bars grow in checkout boxes here that we’ve never heard of in Canada! It makes Walmart trips into a sort of safari. Like bird watching, only better.

-Iced Tea: Canadian Brisk-lovers beware: you may discover too late that otherwise normal-looking fountain iced tea is not necessarily sweetened here, as it always is in Canada. If there are two iced tea spouts in a fountain, be sure to read the fine print on the label to determine which one has to sweet stuff.

-Measurements: our brains must now think in terms of miles, Fahrenheit and pounds. It definitely adds drama to gerocery store lunches when you can`t order the usual 50 grams of honey ham…when grams no longer exist.

-Billboards: unlike our small, rounded ones, all of the billboards I've ever seen here are pointy-edged. Many of them are twice as long as the typical ones lining Canadian metropolitan streets.

-McDonald's: the golden arches lack the central maple leaf.