DAY 02 21112017

So Fargo's an interesting place. Think SmartCenters® crossed with those neighborhoods around airports - the ones with the hotels and endless chain link fences and parking lots and a general fuck-pedestrians attitude towards planning. Every street might as well be a highway and the sidewalks are cruel suggestions. All restaurants are chain restaurants and all buildings were designed by marketing departments to be as inoffensively bland as possible. I considered for about a second if I should walk to the pub I chose to eat dinner at, given it was only 13 minutes away. I quickly reconsidered when, looking out the window, I could see the pub off in the distance and realized there was literally nothing along the way to keep me entertained. There doesn't seem to be any downtown. The place is all suburb. A google image search of "downtown Fargo" shows a few old brick buildings that I assume developers have only reluctantly kept to maintain some semblance of culture. 

But maybe I'm just tired. I woke up at 5 am for another 12 hour drive, and this time the conditions were not as forgiving. Snow fell almost the whole way, and despite the freezing temperatures, the asphalt stayed wet, which meant driving behind cars would coat mine in a shitty, misty spray of road dirt. I went through 4 bottles of wiper fluid trying to keep at least the patches in front of my cameras clean. I gave up trying to clean my driver-side window after a while. 

I had a minor panic right before crossing the border, which prompted me to call Donald (McKay) and ask him for advice. He never answered, returning my call instead about 5 minutes after I crossed. I was worried they wouldn't possibly believe that I'd drive all the way from Toronto to go take pictures of a tall thing and a long thing. Maybe I was projecting. Don joked about how Americans seem to assume everyone is a possible criminal, which hasn't been my experience personally, but I can see where he got that impression. The border agent had looked at me for a couple of seconds after I told him why I was going to North Dakota. I clarified that I was an architecture student and suddenly he was okay with the whole thing, his face lighting up visibly. It's like we have super powers. 

The whole day I had been pretty bored and miserable, a combination of back aches and anxiety and bad weather. Once I crossed the border, things changed. It was about 1 pm and the skies were clearing up, and there were fewer cars on the road. That's one thing I noticed along the way - my mood is directly related to how many vehicles I share the road with. I feel almost claustrophobic when I see cars ahead. I try my best to safely pass them, opening up my view to those converging lines. I try to take photos at that point, carefully calculating the risk of driving dead-center on the highway.

In the car I feel like a maestro. I have a 4 camera set-up. To my left - the most precarious - is an iPhone 6s mounted with suction cups to the driver side window. Next is a GoPro shooting every 5 seconds out my windshield. Next to that is my Mom's Sony A9, mounted on a sketchy but effective rig to my dashboard, also pointed straight ahead. Finally, there's my Sony A7RII, which I use hand-held, shooting whatever catches my eye. None of this is remotely safe, and at any one time I'm firing shutters and pressing buttons on 3 out of 4 cameras (thankfully the GoPro is set before I leave and requires little maintenance).

Still, the closest call I've had so far was on Day 01, when a family of deer ran across the highway outside Barrie. There was plenty of room between cars, and the highway was quiet. Two trucks had stopped to let the deer cross, and I slowed to a stop behind them. I watched them move on, when in my rear-view mirror I see a semi approaching way too fast. I slammed on the throttle and tried to ride the shoulder, but that wouldn't have made a difference. The truck instead swerved into the oncoming lane, which was thankfully free of cars. Had it not been, well, I honestly don't want to think about it. Starr (my girlfriend) kept insisting that I be careful, that no matter how good of a driver you are, you can't predict what others will do. In this case the roads were clean and flat. We weren't in a blind spot, or below the crest of a hill. I wasn't even aware there was a semi behind me, meaning he was far enough to stop. The fucker was simply not paying attention. 

I'm very tired. Tomorrow is my first full day here, and I think I'll just take it easy, buy some groceries, wash my car (which is covered in so thick a layer of salt that I can't see my blind spots), and explore Fargo. I'll hold off on going to see the tower for now. This drive may have been unnecessary - exhausting more than fruitful. 

Marco Chimienti
21.11.17

P.S. More photos incoming, stay tuned (my laptop is struggling with the 42 megapixel photos and 120fps video, so all edits are coming along real slow).