Incommunicado

Ah, the farm: stuck between paradise and Siberia. It's beautiful, especially in contrast to New York. New York is not beautiful; it's just impressive (or opressive, depending on the day), with it's elephantine skyline and expansive bridges. For the first few days in North Dakota, I wondered how to find a balance between equally satisfying but remarkably different lifestyles. Then I realized that to balance them would be to dilute them, and so I have been satisfied with the extremes.

My ten days there passed with inexplicable haste. Kirsten and I arrived in Rugby (my birthplace, also the geographical center of North America) on the 6:45 a.m. train last Wednesday, the 9th. We had flown to Minneapolis the day before from New York, and spent the evening with a family friend getting a tour of the surprisingly cool city. The train from Minneapolis was torturously air conditioned, but we made it through by watching Six Feet Under episodes on my computer. When it started to get light we were almost there. My dad and Nadia met us at the station and minutes later it was like we had been there all along.

I spent the first few days distracted by my dad's birthday and my friend's bachelorette party. Suddenly it was Sunday and Kirsten was already packing for her road trip with Heather. Heather didn't escape without first being introduced to every machine my dad owns.














































































And one of the neighbor's. We were having dinner last Monday, and a buzzing sound in the distance began to crescendo. Moments later, this plopped down into our yard.



Here's the video of my dad taking off with neighbor Bob and his "Big Mosquito".