The hotel is on the north side of the city, off a stroad that straddles Interstate 94. If you take the stroad south, you'll suffer through the interminable intersection that traverses the highway—five minutes, seven?—before the stroad curves around the capitol, evolves into a one-way street through downtown Bismarck, then opens up again, stroad-like around the mall and onto the airport.
If you take the stroad north, it's four-lane Hwy. 83 over the hilly prairies through lignite coal country all the way to Minot, another city of stroads. Do not speed too much along here, because the state patrol will ticket you and even though speeding tickets are a slap on the wrist in North Dakota, it's still $25 or $35 you could spend elsewhere.
It's possible you live in a city of stroads and go to and from places in a car, never considering the risks you must calculate before dashing across on foot. But if you've ever tried to say, get from a landlocked hotel in Minot, North Dakota to a grocery store on the other side of a stroad without a crosswalk or a sidewalk, well, this is Frogger in real life.
Perhaps you realize at some point on this 10-day roadtrip that you've forgotten a soft-sided cooler in the hotel refrigerator at one of your stops, and on a free afternoon, you go in search of a replacement. Stroads attract national chains, giving you a sense of being anywhere and nowhere, but also the belief you could buy anything you need at one of the stores. Or at least eat something familiar from a drive-thru.
The cooler wasn't special, but it was useful. It was shaped like a lunch sack and you could put it in the freezer to get it cold. It was made of that cool-pak material that stays cold for a couple of days, even better if you toss some ice in there. It held a six pack of beer or a couple of sandwiches and a few seltzers. It was made by a no-name brand and purchased for less than $20 at a feed store off a stroad somewhere in Montana in 2020.
Surely all these stores along the stroad in Bismarck carry something equally utilitarian? But Scheels had nothing but $80 Yetis, and who needs a status symbol that isn't even made of the magical cold-pak material you can recharge in a freezer? You find nothing at Target, either, which was on the other side of the mall so even though you'd like to get in a few steps, it makes little sense to dodge the impending thunderstorm and tall pickups. One of them, a black Lincoln SUV, has the license plate PROCOAL, and you wonder about the danger of snapping a quick photo on your phone but do it anyway.
So across the one-way stroad in the car, to Ace Hardware, where the coolers were cheap but inadequate. You know from experience there's nothing worse than those square, soft-sided coolers that leak ice water through the zipper and down your backside when you're walking to the beach with one slung over your shoulder.
And then back up the stroad, past the capitol, through the interminable intersection and up the hill a few miles to Dicks's Sporting Goods, on the right because who wants to turn left across all that Friday afternoon traffic? Again with the pricey Yetis, although in more colorways. There is nothing else that matches what you are beginning to understand was the perfect little soft-sided cooler, and now you are on an official quest.
Exiting the parking lot, you notice momentarily the thunderclouds on the horizon and the way the sprawl intersects with the prairie. Then, though, it’s a left at the light out of the shopping mall, back down the hill toward Menard's, which like Scheels is a regional chain that, as with the view of the prairie on the edge of the sprawl, reminds you that this is a specific place, not just anywhere, any stroad. But Menard's has nothing but the leaky coolers and those ubiquitous Igloo Playmates that take up too much room in the car.
You notice as you drive away from Menard's that it’s next to one of the most beautiful mall retention ponds you've ever seen. Tomorrow you will return to photograph it in better light, because there's a chapter in your book that features just such a place in St. Joseph, Missouri. And then as now it reminds you to look for beauty in the midst of the lazy ugliness of the built environment.
And then there it is, a place you've written about but never seen: The Oil and Gas Division of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. The unassuming two-story brick building could be a suburban dentist's office—but for seven Dodge Ram pickups parked snouts-out: Red, maroon, white, navy, cobalt and black.
There is one final stop on the other side of the stroad, at a CVS where you ask a cashier to check the price on a soft-sider, but c'mon, it’s $12,99 plus tax and you know it will leak through the zipper and money is going to be tighter in the coming months, why buy junk?
And then the next day, still peeved you're without a decent soft-sided cooler, you're on foot taking photographs and you notice even more from where you stand. It's a sign on a slim yellow post, denoting a petroleum pipeline below the earth, running along the extraordinary retention pond next to Menard's, across the street from the unassuming brick building where so many decisions got made about the collective future of our planet.
Yours,
Erika
THE NEWS
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