Beginnings in Bismarck

So, I’m finally in Bismarck, all “settled in”. Signed the lease on my apartment, did some obligatory grocery shopping, put away as much of the one carload of stuff as I was able, all pretty mundane. However, in my travels between car and apartment, I did manage to meet a neighbor. Well, actually, my landlord introduced me to him and asked him if he would help me move my futon when I was ready. He did. I asked his name, and due to his extremely thick German accent, I asked again. After asking for a third time, I attempted with “Swan?”, which was met with an enthusiastic grin and “yes, yes”, though I remain skeptical. I thanked “Swan” for his help and began putting things away. About 5 minutes later, Swan knocked on my slider and asked if I needed any help. I informed him that I didn’t, but he didn’t leave, just started asking questions. Questions like, “Do you have a family? How old are you? Do you have a job? You are from Michigan? You live here alone.” That last one was not a question, and given that I had needed his help to move in, it was fairly obvious. Swan went back to work hanging up Christmas lights on the trees outside my apartment. Five more minutes later, Swan returns with a package of Christmas lights for me (and immediately my first thought after “Ok, creepy guy, enough is enough” was “Oh Great! I’m trying to RID my life of possessions, not collect more stupid shit that I don’t need.”) Swan offers to come inside and hang the Christmas lights around for me, but I tell him I have too much unpacking to do. Swan returns to the Christmas lights. 15 minutes later… knock, knock, knock… “Do you know how to clean?” (Wait, how has my reputation preceded me all the way out here?) Apparently Swan thought that maybe he could get me a job cleaning apartments at night and knock money off my monthly rent. I have absolutely no idea what precipitated this, and by this time he was really creeping me out. Finally on the last “visit”, Swan asked if I liked bars. “On my windows,” I replied in a deadpan. That’s the amusing thing to me about foreigners, they totally miss the concept of sarcasm. “No, no, not on windows. To drink. I take you for drinks, I pay, you not worry about anything. We go to bar for drinking.” I tell Swan thanks, but no thanks, lots of unpacking to do and I’m starting my new job and really quite busy with an inability to socialize. Swan finally left me with his phone number and told me to call if I need anything… He “want to give me help.”

Stalker Swan visited me twice today. The first time I was hidden and he went away. The second time I was in the living room. My ceiling fan is running to help dry my carpet that was shampooed today, and so my blinds are blowing back and forth and he could see me sitting there. I answered, he asked how my first day of work was, I told him I start tomorrow, and then he mercifully got a phone call and walked away and hasn’t been back tonight.

I wonder what’s German for, “You have the most beautiful blonde hair I’ve ever seen.”

I also wonder what’s German for, “Glock.”

Bouncing Toward Bismarck

This morning when I woke up in Fargo and checked the weather, it was only 17 in Bismarck. But alas, instead of turning around and fleeing for home (which I guess isn’t really home anymore), I continued west. It is approximately 190 miles of nothingness between these two great meccas, and I decided to amuse myself by counting the number of cars I passed along the way. The speed limit in North Dakota is 75 once you get outside the city limits, so I set the cruise control at 83 and counted cars between the two speed limit signs. Granted it was Sunday morning, approximately 9 AM when I left Fargo, but it was also the final day of the busiest travel weekend of the year. I passed 53 vehicles. I didn’t count the vehicle being hauled on a trailer by another vehicle. I did count the semi I was in the process of passing at the finish line even though I had not yet completed the pass. Frankly, I was surprised that the result was so high, though the highway did seem busier than the last time… like I said, busiest travel weekend of the year. For comparison purposes, when I get back to Howell in a couple weeks, I’m going to see how far I have to drive to pass so much traffic on 96. I’m guessing I can do it before I get halfway to Novi, though it may be hard to keep count and I don’t know if I should subtract one if a car passes me…

Also of interest, I did see a cop that had someone pulled over headed east bound. I wonder exactly how fast you have to drive to get pulled over when the speed limit is already 75.

Finally in Fargo

And so starts my exciting new adventure… I spent the entire day driving, which was rather uneventful. I listened to The Associate by John Grisham, whose books I’ve never really gotten into, but it was the best of the available alternatives. It seemed to pretty accurately describe the horrors of Big Law (at least according to the rumors), which made me happy that I am nowhere near “qualified” for the option of subjecting myself to such torture.

Just like everything associated with this transition, things have been thrown together haphazardly and everything seems to be occurring at warp speed. I finally received word from New Boss on Wednesday that my background check was complete and I would be allowed to start my new job the following Tuesday. This news would have been more well received if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was within an hour of leaving for Thanksgiving with the fam and had not yet packed more than a couple haphazard boxes. So, I left anyway and drove two hours west for Thanksgiving, turned around Thursday night and drove two hours back home (east), spent until 6 p.m. Friday packing and loading the car, and then turned back around and drove the same two hours west back to my dad’s. I “slept in” this morning until 8 when my dad came in to give me the “tickly toes”. Since I was a kid, his method of waking me up has been to come in the room and tickle my feet and loudly say, “tickly toes, tickly toes, time to get up, tickly toes”. It worked a lot better when I was a kid and more ticklish. Now I pretty much just laugh at the silliness and am thankful to have such a great dad. I finally got on the road about 9:45 and spent the next 12 uneventful hours in the car.

I’ve already started picking out my “landmarks” for the trip. Besides crossing the state lines, the first landmark is the Sears Tower in Chicago. However, by this I don’t mean the real Sears Tower, but a small little tower that has “Sears” written on it and is on the other side of the highway from the cityscape. It makes me laugh. I was going to try to take a picture of it today, but it snuck up on me because of heavy traffic, so that didn’t happen. After several toll booths, the next landmark is crossing into Wisconsin (which seems like it should occur a lot sooner than it actually does!) Now we are into waterslide territory. I swear there are hundreds of waterslide parks along I-90, although maybe in reality only 10. Nonetheless, I was surprised by the number of outdoor waterslide parks located in the tropics of Wisconsin. The next landmark is where I-90 splits back off and the remainder of the trip is on I-94. Right at the split, there is a huge cranberry farm and the cranberry bogs are right next to the freeway. They are like giant red lakes. After awhile there is also this weird outcropping of rocks that looks sort of like the Wisconsin version of Stonehenge. Eventually come Minnesota (i.e. St. Paul and Minneapolis), where I pass the Land-O-Lakes butter company and also the Creative Memories scrapbooking headquaters. And from them on… a whole lotta’ nuthin! Until the big “Welcome to North Dakota” sign appears on the horizon and 775-ish miles from the beginning, you are FINALLY in Fargo!