The Medora Car Show

This is the weekend when the employee parking lot (which is really just a grassy area) is suddenly transformed into a bustling hub of classic car activity. The weekend wasn't the perfect one for such an event. The thunderstorms lasted a little too long into the morning, and after a few hours of beautiful sun, a brief but powerful storm brought hail to the cringing car owners.

All in all, though, it was a good weekend, Most of the hotels were booked up and the streets were a more interesting place with the sweet cars cruising through town.

Here are a few photos of my quick stroll in the few moments of sunshine.

celebrity catastrophe

The Flag Day all horse parade started out innocently enough.

(some patriotic spectators)

This event showcasing the iconic american cowboy culture covered the distance of about 2 blocks, with each horse and rider announced by the slightly unprepared announcers. Being such a small parade, the audience didn't really know what to do, and the timid applause didn't begin until about 7 horses in. Such is the charm of events in such a small town.

(various rodeo princesses carrying the Medora flag and the Rough Rider flag)

(some cowboys, check out the mini one)

Near the end of the parade, the famous Burning Hills Singers, the cast of the Medora Musical, and the closest thing to celebrity that this town has, came riding down the street in a horse drawn buggy. Things were going just fine until they reached the announcers stand, and one of the horses (who had a broken bridle to begin with) spooked. Buffalo Dale, who was riding a horse next to the buggy, and the driver of the buggy tried to keep the horses under control, but they bolted down the street, making for a much quicker parade than anticipated. At that point a loud noise was heard and the spectators raced to the street to see what happened. The announcers urged everyone back to the curb, reminding us that horses are temperamental and everything was under control. Everything was not, in fact, under control. The horse and buggy crashed into a parked car, and all the burning hills singers jumped ship. The car was damaged and an ambulance was called as 16 year old cast member, Macy Jo, was having a panic attack. Thankfully the cast and and horses came through unharmed, and the show could go on. As you can imagine, this was the talk of the town for days to come.

(Buffalo Dale and some frightened Burning Hills Singers, as the horses begin to make a dash for it)

photo of today.

Spotted on the corner of third street and third ave.:

There are several things to note in this photo.

1. The event that is occurring is the lowering of the flags which occurs every evening, and they are raised every morning. This is narrated by a loudspeaker which can be heard all through town, and is performed by "troops" weather they be girl scouts or anonymous horse riders, as seen in today's photo.

2. The man in the black jacket and hat is Cowboy Lyle Glass, Medora's resident cowboy. Due to health issues, he isn't riding this year but he oversees the raising and lowering of flags every day. He also has a candy shop named after him.

3. There is a man wearing a nice combination of colors in the foreground.

4. To the right of that man's head is General Custer. He drives a PT Cruiser.

5. You will also notice some horses on the right of the photo, a common sight in the streets of Medora.

Feathers of the West

Nestled in the Western Edge bookstore and art gallery, we stumbled upon what appears to be quite the movement in western art: paint on feathers. The detailed paintings of badlands wildlife were created on feathers of an unidentified bird and mounted with tracks of the painted animal as a border. It seems to be a recent trend, as well, as all paintings were signed and dated by artist F L Knudson from this year or last.

Feathers, who knew?

Brands

Cattle brands can be found all over the town of Medora, and being the typography nerds that we are, they immediately caught our attention.

They are used as a way to distinguish one rancher’s cattle from another, and need to be registered in the state’s brand book. They function as a kind of logo for the rancher and we have seen them on headstones in the cemetery, in the pizza parlor as a way to mark that the cowboy had been in town, in the cowboy hall of fame as another means of identification, as well as being used for simple decoration.



Although the brands are unique to each rancher, they all follow an organizational system so that they can be read by others. A brand is read from left to right, then top to bottom and finally from outside to inside when the brand has one character that encloses another. Special terms are used when a letter is used in a nontraditional way: crazy for reversed, lazy for turned 90 degrees, flying for a symbol that starts and ends with a long serif or horizontal lines, rocking is a symbol set on top of a quarter circle, bar is a line preceding or following a symbol, box is a symbol with a square or rectangle, etc. There can be combinations of many of these terms within one brand.

branding iron:

We found these brands so fascinating because they are using letters and common symbols in a manner that creates their own language. This system of organization recognizes the visual quality of letters in a way that our written language doesn’t always acknowledge. These symbols become the identity of the rancher in a way that a logo becomes the identity of a company. However, unlike logos, there is a system in place that allows someone in the know to be able to read a brand they have never seen before because it's not just an image, it is a language.

Typography. On cattle. Bam.

And here's a little bonus: Two of Abby's uncles and her Grandpa branding:

We've seen their brands around town, so here's a photo of them in action.

The Enchanted Highway: Road of Anticipation

Welcome to the NDICA!

We wanted to start this blog off with a bang, so here is North Dakota’s very own “Enchanted Highway,” one of the most impressive stretches of highway known to humankind. This 32 mile journey is home to eight monumental metal sculptures, wide open plains, a handful of pheasants, three towns and not much else.

Artist Gary Greff created this attraction as a way to bring traffic and business to his hometown of Regent, ND. We for sure wouldn’t have gone without the Enchanted Highway guiding us there! You can check out the full story at www.enchantedhighway.net

We started out in our mini van with no idea of what to expect. The Enchanted Highway is advertised from the interstate with a handful of signs, and the first sculpture looms over the interstate, beckoning you to check it out.

Driving up the gravel road to the first sculpture, Geese in Flight, you are welcomed by a flock of crudely cut black metal geese pointing you up to the parking lot. The sculpture is a massive eye shaped structure (110 feet tall) supporting 10 westward facing geese, the largest with a wingspan of 30 feet. This thing is impressively giant, and fronted by a strange pieced and spray painted sheet metal barricade/mountain range. The support cables became a lovely part of the piece as well.

The next sculpture was three miles down the road, and as with all of them, could be seen from miles away. Deer crossing, although it looked more like a lamb and a reindeer, was also mind blowing in scale (as you can see from the tiny people in the photo). And it came with a freakishly weird and unexpected sheet metal maze somewhat reminiscent of a cattle chute, which was surprisingly fun to interact with, and made this stop worth pulling over for.

Grasshoppers Delight is next in the lineup. This piece made good use of variation in scale and came with a bonus jungle gym and rideable grasshoppers on springs. While some of the giant metal wheat stalks were broken and falling over, the rope lights adorning the baby grasshoppers made it all the more enchanting.

photo for scale:

Five miles down the road, we came across Fishman’s Dream, which looked a bit more like a nightmare to us. I mean, if I caught a fish at least 10 times my size that was also made out of metal, I would be concerned. The surprise activity at this site was a sunken ship that was not so child friendly due to the swarming insects and jagged edges. It did, however serve to add to the feeling of adventure and created more of an experience to include you in the piece. Also there was a killer robin nesting in some seaweed.

Pheasants in the Prairie had a lovely silhouette from miles away. The family of mesh-bodied birds greeted you from the road with wide-eyed surprise, and once again shocked and awed us with massive scale.

Up next is Teddy Rides Again. North Dakota loves its Theodore Roosevelt history, and he shows up just about everywhere. This piece included a horse drawn carriage that could be climbed into, which of course we did. Teddy was essentially a line drawing made from plumbing pipe of some kind.

Next was the Tin Family. This was the first piece created, and also probably a learning experience for the artist. It was creepy, not to mention the crows nesting in it. But it was big!

The last piece was Whirly Gigs, which brought us into the bustling town of Regent. We drove past it before realizing where the grand finale was. Turns out, it was the contraption next to the gift shop which involved moving parts when the green button was pressed. The gift shop was a treat in and of itself. The sign on the door assured us that it was indeed open, all we needed to do was call one of the phone numbers listed below. We took a photo op moment with the couple we met from Ohio instead.


Overall, the experience was not what we expected, but who could expect such an impressive undertaking in the middle of nowhere! Was it weird? Yes. Was it awesome? Yes. Was it worth the gas and time? You betcha.