Listing Through Life

Jamestown, North Dakota bills itself as “The Buffalo City.” Their claim to this title is based on two attractions.

1. The World’s Largest Buffalo Statue
2. White buffalo

The statue was impossible to miss. Here it is from the Interstate.

And a close up from the side that gave me the proper angle on the sun.

There was a group of four young women by the statue who were taking dozens of photos of each other, none of which had anything to do with the buffalo but all of which were in my way. I walked back and forth trying to find a shot that didn’t include them while making snarky comments to my wife about how oblivious they were. Of course, one of them asked me to take a photo of the four of them. I agreed, then try to explain to them that they had to be facing into the sun or their faces would be in shadow. They questioned this at first, then moved into the wrong position, then finally got in place after one of them said, “He must know what he’s talking about. He has a really nice camera.” A couple minutes later, as we were leaving we had to wait for them to get out of the middle of the road where they were having a discussion on which way they wanted to walk.

The white buffalo were a bit trickier to find. They’re part of the herd belonging to the National Buffalo Museum (which we didn’t bother paying to see). We were in the area for several minutes before we spotted one as it walked up out of a swale.

We had been warned us that sometimes the white buffalo weren’t very white. That was decidedly the case on this day.

We hung around about 20 minutes, then headed east for home.

There are currently 13 people living in Alfred, North Dakota. There are at least that many abandoned buildings in town. Most of them, I only viewed from the outside.

I went inside this one and wandered around for a little while.

The only thing left on the kitchen shelves was a package of Ramen Noodles.

I had the red chair along when I wandered around the Alfred grain elevator. Here are those shots.

The operators of the grain elevator in Alfred apparently left work in August, 1982 and never returned. There’s stuff on the shelves, stuff in the desk drawers, stuff on the walls. I wandered about for an  hour or so and took photos at leisure. Here’s a look at agricultural America 31  years ago.

In the loading area

In the outer room

In the office

In the elevator

Out back

Basement catwalk

I stuck my camera through one of the small holes along the catwalk and pointed it up.