DAY 08 27112017

I've never been so fascinated and frustrated by a place the way I've been with North Dakota. 

I woke up at 5 am, determined to hit the road before sunrise - google informed me that would happen at 7:45 am - when the streets and country roads would be quiet. As usual, that didn't happen. My best friend in grades 7-9 lived on a farm, where I actually worked for a few summers, driving a tractor and bagging corn (this was not one of those industrial farms, with revenue in the millions affording them automation). Had I recalled this memory before heading out, I'd have realized how dumb it was to try to wake up before farmers. 

The point is that the roads were not quiet, and this was a problem. My plan for the day was to drive the 46, but take my time with it, stopping to explore and photograph. Having cars behind you makes it difficult to stop whenever you want, especially on the 46's nearly non-existant shoulder. As I spot something interesting, I had about 2 seconds to judge whether it was worth decelerating from 115 km/h (really just about the speed limit on these highways, and from the amount of pick-ups tailgating me, a suggestion at most). Before I knew it, I had reached the end, having stopped only twice (once, at a random corn field just before sun-rise, the next, well after, by a reservoir where hundreds of white birds too far off to properly identify were resting on their trip south - and where, I should note, a woman in a truck very visibly slowed down to either make sure I wasn't doing anything suspicious, or to make sure I wasn't in trouble, my car parked with the hazards on [a courtesy I realized was unneeded, drawing too much attention.])

On my way back, I decide this particular drive was a failure, and that instead of stopping to photograph, I'd set-up my iPhone to record the whole 2 hour trip back in slow-motion, for a roughly 10 hour crawl through mostly empty fields. And of course, as always, that didn't quite work out either. My fucking mount fell off 15 minutes in. Shot ruined.

I'm starting to resent this place. 

Back in Fargo, I transfer some footage, eat a meal (I made burritos), shower. It's noon and I'm at a loss for what to do. I had planned the whole day around the 46, and it was a bust. I check my email.
 

Hi Marco,

My transmitter engineer will be on site at Blanchard on Thursday this week.  If that works, I can arrange for you to meet him.  I may be able to meet with you during the week in Fargo, you will have to let me know when you plan on being here.  We are extremely busy here with projects and I don’t know how much time I will have.

Doug

Doug Jenson
Chief Engineer
KVLY-NBC/KX4-CBS/MeTV/FargoCW

Doug Jenson came through! I had emailed him last Friday, from the Tower, asking if I could get a peek inside the control room somehow. It was a long shot, and it paid off. I was supposed to leave Fargo on Thursday, unless I felt like I needed another day here to wrap things up. I quickly called the front desk and extended my stay. After a few brief exchanges, Doug and I agree that I would just speak to the engineer, a man named Lyle Nelson - declining to meet me in person, politely explaining that it's a busy week and he's strapped for time,

I decide to head back to the Tower, still needing to drop that note off at the mysterious farm house. (Mildly-amusing anecdote: the many silos on their land had the name Butler on them, and so logically, I started to think of that place as Butler Farms, at least until I started driving the 46, where I saw many more silos with the name Butler and realized it was a brand name. The actual farm name is " elm   en  Farm ". There were some letters missing.)

I pull up to the house, my car between their driveway and the mail box. I wonder for a moment if what I'm about to do is legal, set that thought aside, look around, make sure I'm not being watched, open my car door, run to the mail box, open the mail box, notice the stack of letters unclaimed, set my note neatly on top of the unclaimed letters, close the box, slam my car door, and drive off like mad.

The weather today was right around freezing, but with no wind, it was the most pleasant day so far. I drove up to the very base of the Tower, my car a kind of safety blanket I thought necessary for today's goal - I'd round that corner and face the Tower head on. And I did. And I wondered, as I often do, what the fuck was wrong with me. It's just a tower. It lands so bluntly, so matter-of-factly, that I'm honestly kind of disappointed. The three main columns are dead-pan bolted to a concrete pad, like a cheap guardrail. Other masts, which I've only seen from a distance, had such a complex looking web of wires and steel at the base that I expected something more daunting and engineered. Those other masts also, usually, terminate in a single pined connection, which I'm guessing allows them to sway in the wind. 

Still, I never got very close. The wind died down today, but the sound was still there, and behind it, something I hadn't quite made out before (because of the wind): the unmistakable sound of current flowing through wire. That worried me on a kind of primal level, so I stay back, able to watch the thing but not approach. This was that sounds: 

Something I've failed to mention (that you may have wondered about if you've read the Prep Work) is this Tower's cousin, always visible in the background. I didn't know quite where she fit in to this story, being the second tallest structure in America and 5th in the world. The sun was setting, and though I had the comfort of my car right at the very base, I was still in no mood to be around when the beacons started flashing. I decide to drive the five-ish miles to that other tower. 

Though just shy of KVLY's imposing height by three feet, I can't help but find her so much less imposing. My mind knows that 3 feet over 2063 is a drop in the ocean, 0.15% shorter, objectively imperceptible even if side by side. Maybe it's that the tower was rebuilt twice, once after an ice storm, anther after a military helicopter flew into the guy-wires, killing all 4 on board. It's not as old. It's built using better, lighter steel. The cables are less numerous and the angles less severe, and thus the visual mass of the whole thing is not as heavy. The structure is left raw, galvanized instead of the fading white and red paint of KVLY. The beacons are not the usual pulsing crimson, but intense white strobes. It should be as impressive, but it isn't, because I've made up my mind weeks ago that it never could be. I never get very close to it, instead choosing to drive the roads adjacent, getting out once to take a few photos at the entrance. She's not worth my time. 

I drive back to Fargo using country roads instead of the interstate. On the way back I nearly hit 3 dogs who ran out from a field to play with my car. I slam on my breaks, stopping just shy of a chocolate lab who I suspect would have been fine, seemingly knowing to avoid my tires, instead jumping up and down by my passenger window. The other two, a brown mutt and a yellow lab, fight by the side of the road. They're all collared. I roll down my window and asked them politely to move. I keep driving through nameless-yet-named towns (Blanchard, Hunter, Arthur, Amenia, Casselton, Mapleton), arriving in Fargo well after sunset, feeling nostalgic already.

***Don if you're reading this, let me know what other word to use to describe irrational sadness brought on by rose-tinted memories, because I know you don't like the word 'nostalgia'.***

The place is growing on me, despite everything I've been thought to hate about it, as well as the things I'm sure I hate (there's the days-long story about a search for a sponge that I'll spare you... Okay, the gist is this: it took me 3 days and 5 trips to find a sponge. I finally found it at a supermarket 5 minutes from my hotel, though on my way back I got lost, driving a kilometer in the wrong direction because everything looks the same. I had to google my way back). It's growing on me because the people are friendly as hell, mostly non-judgmental, mostly curious. I've had nothing but pleasant interactions. The architecture is atrocious, but fairly well built, care taken in the assembly. I drove through the most suburb-y of suburban developments you can imagine - treeless lawns broken up by wide driveways to accommodate the ever growing girth of American pick-up trucks (seriously guys, 50% of that car must be empty space, there's no way the engine block is that big) leading up to the just-as-wide double garage doors that dominate the front facade of the split-level homes, missing only white picket fences and rose bushes. And yet I was charmed. Almost every driveway had a basket ball hoop over the garage door, and every now and then I spotted a plastic tricycle. It's like they don't realize how stereotypically suburban it all is, and at that thought I realize how jaded I've become, recalling my interaction with Schantel from a few days ago. I don't like to preach, but architects (designers, artists, etc) can be so fucking self-righteous sometimes. My first thought, driving through this small corner of Fargo that may as well be every corner of Fargo, was "how can I improve this?", when maybe it doesn't need to be improved, maybe these people are fucking happy with their absurd trucks and bland-but-functional houses. And I'm suddenly thinking once again about my thesis and how I've avoid the question asked in our second semester:

“How does your thesis plug into a real and urgent question about the world we live in?”

Does it fucking have to? We're architects. We build buildings. And while I don't mean to diminish our profession, we like to think our work affects people more than it actually does...

... I've typed out 4 possible elaborations on that thought that I'm not comfortable sharing, because all 4 were literal windows into my darkest, most cynical thoughts, and man, this is getting too heavy. Instead, here's a picture of of a stop sign: