Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Friendly Fargo welcomes three Minnesotans March 1, 2012

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Clean, quiet, friendly, inviting modern decor...I'd definitely recommend the Fairfield Inn.

FARGO GETS a bad rap.

OK, maybe the name isn’t all that appealing, as my 18-year-old noted. I suppose you could misconstrue Fargo as “Too-Far-To-Go.”

The wind definitely bites in Fargo. The land is most assuredly flat.

But I am here to tell you that the people are most certainly friendly. From Corey at the Fairfield Inn Marriott to the young mom and her daughter at Space Aliens Grill & Bar to Emma, our tour guide at North Dakota State University, every person we met welcomed my family with warmth during a recent visit to Fargo. Yes, they did.

Corey from the Fairfield front desk phoned our room shortly after our arrival to verify that we were satisfied with the accommodations. We were.

Later, helpful Corey even pulled out a map of the city and highlighted a route from the hotel to Space Aliens and to NDSU. He also advised us to allow 15 minutes of travel time to the college campus the next morning.

Pulling into the parking lot of Space Aliens, we noted a neon sign with this message: “Earthlings welcome.” Yes, a humorous welcome like that makes anyone feel at home.

Along Fargo's mall/restaurant strip, you'll find Space Aliens at 3250 32nd Ave. S.

In the ideal light of a setting sun, I photographed this image before entering Space Aliens.

Then before I stepped into the restaurant, a young mom whom I’d asked about food recommendations, really did say, “Welcome to Fargo.”

“Can we eat with her?” her little girl asked, looking directly at me.

We didn’t. Eat with her.

I walked into the restaurant and shot this image as the sun set on Fargo. Just like looking through the doors of a fictional spaceship. I would have really loved this place as a kid, being a fan of "Lost in Space" and all.

We sat in a booth along the far wall in this dining room packed with young families. Yes, Space Aliens is definitely a kid-oriented place with all things space and a game room. Lots of lights. Lots of noise. We found the food to be over-priced for what we got in both quantity and quality.

We dined in a room where our waitress, a local college student, had to repeat the list of dips for fries three times above the din of diners. And gold star for her, she didn’t even appear annoyed by our inability to hear or our difficulty deciphering menus in poor lighting conditions.

The main dining area was mostly empty when we arrived. As you can see, lots to take in visually.

A final parting shot of Space Aliens, a particularly fun restaurant to photograph and with a great atmosphere for kids who love space and need to be entertained while dining out.

The next morning we awoke to the sun rising in splendid shades of rose for an 8:45 a.m. appointment at the university. Perfect day, despite the biting wind. Caring more about warmth than fashion, my husband, son and I clamped on our stocking caps and gloves for our campus tour led by the friendly, backward-walking Emma.

More Fargo friendliness followed during meetings with an admissions rep and engineering professor and during impromptu chats with two engineering students.

So there you have it. Fargo friendliness. Everywhere.

No wood chippers in sight, although I understand you’ll find one at the Fargo-Moorhead Convention and Visitors Center. (It’s the real wood chipper used in the Coen brothers’ movie, “Fargo,” from whence many Fargo stereotypes have evolved.)

I spotted not a single red-and-black buffalo plaid flannel shirt, except the one I wore upon our arrival from Minnesota.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Scenes along Interstate 94 driving toward Fargo February 27, 2012

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The coal-fired power plant by Becker as seen from Interstate 94.

IN COUNTRY THAT’S primarily flat and open, you notice the details—the shape and height of clouds, the tint of the soil, the sharp angles of buildings, towers that break the monotony of horizontal lines and so much more.

At least I notice these things. Maybe you don’t.

Join me today on one final trek along Interstate 94 as we travel northwest toward Fargo, North Dakota. Begin to see, like me, man’s imprint upon the land.

I am neither endorsing nor criticizing the content of these images. I am simply showing you examples of what I noticed along that drive, beginning near Monticello, Minnesota. I’ve already shown you the skyscapes and the farm sites in previous posts.

These photos represent subjects that don’t fit into a single, well-defined category. They are, if anything, simply scenes that unfold upon the stage of this land, this wide, wide land.

I'd love to know the history behind this house in the Avon area.

You just don't see old corn cribs like this in use much anymore. Something about them so appeals to me visually.

Deep in the heart of dairy country, I spotted this vet clinic sign by Freeport.

Freeport, "The city with a smile!" is marked by this old-fashioned smiling water tower.

Drive I-94 and you'll see endless towers like this one where the tower dwarfs an abandoned building to the right.

This country is rural through and through. This may be an ethanol plant although I'm not sure. Anyone know?

I expected to see more trains than I did. These were near the plant in the photo above.

Who knew? A Budweiser plant in Moorhead.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Broken hearts February 22, 2012

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A dorm at NDSU, photographed during my campus visit last Friday.

FOUR YOUNG WOMEN die in a traffic accident along a snowy stretch of Interstate 94 in central Minnesota on Monday afternoon.

The news breaks your heart. How can it not?

Early Tuesday morning I published a post about a recent visit to the campus of North Dakota State University in Fargo, the destination for these women returning after a long holiday weekend.

I knew of the accident when I published the post. But I did not know then the names of the victims or their status as NDSU freshmen.

Jordan Playle, Danielle Renninger, Lauren Peterson and Megan Sample—three of them roommates—all from the Twin Cities metro area, are gone.

Students and staff on the campus I walked just days ago grieve.

Parents and siblings and other family members mourn.

Friends and high school classmates face the very real and tough reality of death.

And those of us parents who have sent our children off to college think about how many times we’ve hugged our kids goodbye, waved to them as they drove away and expected them to arrive, without incident, back at their dorms or apartments.

It is the kind of day when you want to circle your family close around you, wrap them in your arms and tell them how very much you love them.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

On the road to Fargo, where sky meets land February 20, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:07 AM
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Only 192 miles to Fargo, North Dakota. We've already driven 93.

SKY. That single word defines a road trip from Faribault to Fargo.

Don’t talk miles and time to me. Talk sky.

Once past the St. Cloud exit along Interstate 94, you start noticing the sky, how, the farther west you travel, the larger it becomes until the sheer immensity of that above overwhelms that below.

Sky meets land somewhere westbound along Interstate 94 toward Fargo.

For those who live in the confines of the city, where buildings and masses of streets and highways pull the sky downward and ground it, the vastness of the skies can unsettle the spirit and create a sense of vulnerability. You can’t help but feel exposed under brooding clouds and a sky that stretches into a distance without end.

Interstate 94 sometimes seems to run right into the sky as you drive west.

Yet, for me, a prairie native, there’s a certain sense of calm that comes from traveling into the sky. Because that is what you do when driving west from Minnesota toward the Dakotas. You drive into the sky.

After an initial awareness that you really are incredibly small compared to that above, you begin to notice the details. Or at least I begin to appreciate the details—like the hard edge where sky meets land, the ever-changing skyscape as clouds shift and the day wanes, the nuances in colors and texture that define firmament and field.

Power lines set against the backdrop of the sky provide a visual vertical respite for the eyes.

It is as if you’ve brushed yourself right into a landscape painting.

And I can’t get enough of it, of the strong horizontal lines that sweep across my vision, reconnecting me to my prairie past.

The landscape: flat and into forever near Fargo/Moorhead.

The ever-changing clouds blend with the rural landscape.

As the sun sets, the sky broods.

The sharp contrast of black and white against blue pleases my eyes.

Fence lines and farms slice through the land.

A church spire in the distance draws my eye in this place where my soul reconnects to the prairie.

ALL OF THESE IMAGES were taken with my DSLR camera, set at a fast shutter speed, while traveling along Interstate 94. Check back for more posts from this trip to Fargo.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Happy birthday to my adventurous, big-city daughter February 10, 2012

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Amber in 1986, sometime during her first year of life. The photo is not dated. A friend told me she looked just like the baby on the Gerber baby food jars.

TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO today, I joined the sisterhood of mothers at the birth of my daughter.

Now, dear readers, if you’ve read my post from yesterday, you will recall that my son celebrated his 18th birthday just yesterday.

What are the chances of giving birth to two children one day shy of eight years apart? I have no idea. (My other daughter was born in November.)

But back to the daughter who today turns 26, which is now more than half way to 50. I had to toss that mathematical notation in there because, well, through the years I’ve received my share of handcrafted cards from her emphasizing my age.

There, I’ve gotten that out.

On to Amber… How does a mother describe a daughter, explain the depth of love she has for her, reveal the essence of a bond that really cannot be confined to words?

I can’t.

But I’ll share a few observations about the daughter I’ve nurtured and loved and cherish as only a mother can cherish.

She’s a strong, independent woman living and working in the big city. And she loves it. Sometimes I’m still surprised that any offspring of mine would love city life given their rural genetics. Can genes include a predisposition to rural or city? Probably not.

Life for Amber is an adventure, whether organizing a gathering with friends or planning a trip across the country or abroad. I won’t even mention here the trip she is pondering now for fear that writing the words will stamp the journey into reality.

I expect those close to me sometimes wonder, given Amber’s inclination to travel, whether she could possibly be my daughter. Here’s the explanation as to her wanderlust: I purposely raised Amber with a desire to travel, allowing her to go on mission trips and Christian youth gatherings while in high school.  Was it easy for me? No. But sometimes oftentimes a mother sets aside her worries to do what is best for her child.

Amber loves the Minnesota Twins. And I love how, each June, she takes her dad to a Twins game as his Father’s Day gift. They’ve invited me along. I’m not interested in baseball. And even if I was, I wouldn’t join them. This time is best left for father and daughter to savor without my intrusion.

Even at three months, Amber possessed a sense of fashion, wouldn't you say?

Since moving to the city upon her college graduation 3 ½ years ago, Amber’s developed a sense of fashion that suits urban life. She wears hip, but not over the top, attire that exudes confidence and style. Yet, she manages this by thrifting, using coupons and shopping sales. It pleases me that my daughter values the lesson she learned from youth that it’s OK to wear recycled clothing.

This post would not be complete without telling you that Amber is, simply put, a truly nice person. She’s kind and loyal and loving and generous and friendly—to the point where she recently was scolded for being “too friendly.” But we shall not get into that here.

She’s a woman with a deep faith in God. And that, more than anything, is what I desire for any child of mine.

Today I celebrate the blessing of Amber, my first-born, the daughter who always made her dad and me laugh by calling soda crackers “Minnesota” crackers. She says the moniker came from biting into a cracker that then looked like the shape of our state. I say she was confused by the soda/sota.

It doesn’t matter. She still makes us laugh.

Happy birthday, Amber!

I love you.

Mom

I wasn't sure Amber would like this Twins bag I picked up for her as a Christmas gift. But she loved it. The past two years she's worn that ugly Christmas sweatshirt and an equally ugly holiday sweater at holiday gatherings. So please do not consider this her fashion style.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Kudos to the smart science kids out there February 8, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:27 AM
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SEARCH THE RECESSES of my home and you won’t find a single sports trophy, medal or ribbon. We are not athletes.

But you will find honors for academic achievements.

During elementary school, my second daughter consistently placed in the region’s Lutheran schools spelling competition, bringing home trophies and ribbons. In 2006, she graduated from high school at the top of her class. (My mom and a niece also graduated at the tops of their classes and I graduated second.)

Now my 17-year-old high school senior has won two medals for his scientific and mathematical skills and knowledge. This past weekend Caleb and his Faribault High School Science Team teammate, Luke, earned first place in the Regional Finals Science Olympiad competition in Rochester with their gravity vehicle.

They built a vehicle and ramp and then, using physics skills, calculated time, distance and speed to race and stop their car at a specific point. They came within about an inch of the target. I won’t attempt to explain the details of how they accomplished this because, well, I don’t understand it. Suffice to say, they did everything right to win the contest.

A wheel on the winning car, as it was being built. I would show you the car, except I did not get a good shot of it and now the car is at school and Caleb would not like that I want to photograph it. Suffice to say the car is basically four pieces of wood joined into a rectangular shape. Caleb and Luke wrote their names on the car. That's it. Why make it flashy? Flashy doesn't count, my son says. Gotta love that attitude.

Caleb, along with a different teammate, Travis, also placed third in an astronomy competition.

Faribault students Anna and Anwyn earned first place regional honors in “Write It Do It.” Sara and Riley placed second and Anwyn and Tanner, fourth, in “Forestry.” And a fourth place finish also went to Nathaniel and Max in the “Fermi Questions” competition. (Don’t even ask about “Fermi.” I have no clue; I never claimed I was smart in science.)

Faribault High’s two science teams finished fifth and eighth at region, qualifying both teams for state competition. However, rules allow only one team from each school to compete at state.

FHS science teacher Jason Boggs says this is the first time since he’s been co-coaching the science teams that both teams have technically qualified for state.

Caleb and 14 other FHS students will compete at state on March 3 at the University of St. Thomas.

So there you have it—my little plug today for all those smart kids out there who excel in academics but seldom receive the recognition they deserve.

Be proud.

Your academic successes will take you far in life.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

What’s your line? January 31, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:53 AM
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WHAT LINES DEFINE your world? Horizontal or vertical?

Perhaps you’ve never considered that question. But ponder that for a minute.

Where do you live? Where do you work? What lines define your environment?

Do you live in the city, the country or a small town? Do you live on the prairie, in the mountains or somewhere in between?

My world has always been horizontal. I prefer it that way—flat and unbroken by vertical obstacles. Towering buildings overwhelm me; make me feel small, visually overpowered and uncomfortable.

Can you understand that? Perhaps if you grew up or live in a rural area, you do.

The sun sets on my native southwestern Minnesota prairie in this December 2010 image.

I traveled to Chicago once during college, and to New York. While touring the garment district in the Big Apple, I was nearly flattened by a vendor pushing a rack of clothing as I paused on the sidewalk to gawk at the skyscrapers. In Chicago, I struggled with sleeping in a hotel that stretched too far into the sky.

A view of the Minneapolis skyline from Interstate 35.

I can’t recall the last time I visited downtown Minneapolis, but I’m certain it’s been decades. I’ve never been to any other big cities and I have no desire to travel to them.

Some of you will say I am missing out on culture and shopping and so much more by staying out of the city. You would be right.

But to counter that, I will tell you many a big city resident fails to leave the confines of the city to explore the small towns and rural areas that offer grassroots culture and shopping and much, much more.

I am not trying to pit city against country, horizontal against vertical, here. Rather, I’d simply like you to think about your world from a visual perspective. Then, tell me, what lines define your landscape? Vertical or horizontal, or a mixture of both?

Even in rural Minnesota, vertical lines occasionally break the horizon, like this scene at Christensen Farms along U.S. Highway 14 east of Sleepy Eye in southwestern Minnesota.

The strong horizontal lines of railroad tracks and trains cross the flat prairie landscape of southwestern Minnesota. I shot this along U.S. Highway 14 between Springfield and Sleepy Eye as snow fell late on a March morning in 2011.

Railroad tracks and diggers slice precise horizontal lines across the landscape in this March 2011 image shot while traveling U.S. Highway 14 between Springfield and Sleepy Eye, in my native southwestern Minnesota.

I live in Faribault, an hour's drive south of Minneapolis along Interstate 35. While I certainly don't consider Faribault, with a population of around 22,000 to be a small town, it's definitely not urban. I shot this pastoral scene last spring several miles west of town near Roberds Lake.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

When your day fails to go as planned January 27, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:30 AM
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I RECENTLY READ somewhere—and I read a lot—if you want to make God laugh, plan your day.

Well, God must have been rolling on the floor, laughing until he cried and his belly hurt on Thursday because I had one of those days. You know, the kind that veers completely from your intended course of action.

My main goal for the day was to finish pulling together financial information for the professional who completes our taxes. Now those of you who know me, either personally or via this blog, realize how much I detest numbers. Math whiz I am not. And to add to the stress this year, I once again need to file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid after a two-year respite. I despise forms, especially when numbers comprise the bulk of the required information.

I never got to the numbers on Thursday.

Rather, I spent most of my morning researching information for a document my husband needs for a church meeting on Sunday. I’m happy to help him, but I never thought the project would consume hours of my time.

I expect God was getting a chuckle out of that, his subtle reminder that perhaps I should give just a little more of my time to him.

The rest of the day slipped away in work-related issues with precious little time for writing.

Have you noticed the repeat of the word “time” in all three of the above paragraphs? Why am I so obsessed with time?

Despite my day failing to go as planned, I knew I had a delightful evening ahead. My husband and I had been planning for weeks to attend a presentation by Minnesota photographer Doug Ohman who has published a series of “Minnesota Byways” books.

But then, 50 minutes before Ohman’s talk, my husband called. The car had broken down on his way home from work and he needed a ride and a tow.

Long story short, we missed Ohman’s 6 p.m.presentation. (Who chooses these times anyway?)

After a late supper, kitchen clean-up and e-mail catch-up, I finally kicked back in the recliner to finish the final chapters in Still Standing: The Story of SSG John Kriesel by John Kriesel as told to Jim Kosmo.

About then, God must have been muttering to himself, “Well, she thinks she’s had a bad day…”

He was right, of course. Put in the perspective of all the problems and tragedies a day can bring, my Thursday rated as just fine, thank you. My legs weren’t blown off in a roadside blast. I wasn’t fighting to live. None of my friends had been killed in Iraq.

Minnesota National Guardsman Kriesel had dealt with all of that and managed to overcome, to be positive, to move forward with his life. His story is about as inspiring as any you’ll ever read.

And then, when I finished that book Thursday evening, I picked up Conversations with the Land by Jim VanDerPol, a Chippewa County farmer and writer. I’m only a few essays into his book, but already I appreciate the approach he takes to the land and to life in general. He pauses to notice, to savor, to value his land and his role as tender of the earth. His writing resonates with me, reconnects me to the prairie of my youth, the land that still influences my writing.

And so my Thursday ended and a new day has begun with a sunrise so splendid that my husband called to tell me about it, as he often does when the morning sky is especially beautiful.

The remnants of today's sunrise as viewed from my office window.

Several weeks ago, I started penning this poem after pausing to watch the sunrise:

Jam on toast

My fingertips lift within a mere whisper of the keyboard

as I halt, half-thought, words interrupted mid-sentence,

to tilt my head toward the window and the sunrise

spreading gold and pink across the sky like jam on toast.

#

In that morning moment, I want nothing more

than to dip my fingers into the jar of dawn,

to sample her sweetness, to taste of her earthy goodness,

to delight in sunshine and rain and succulent fruit plucked from vines.

#

PERHAPS TODAY should be the day I finish this poem.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A Minnesota prairie native discovers a ship docked in the Wisconsin woods January 26, 2012

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I GREW UP on the southwestern Minnesota prairie, a mostly flat land vertically-interrupted only by small-town grain elevators and water towers, by silos and groves of trees hugging farm sites.

I never felt hemmed in. How could I feel confined under an endless sky in a land that stretches into forever, nearly unbroken before your eyes?

Perhaps that will help you understand why I sometimes struggle with trees. I’m not talking a tree here, a tree there, but trees packed so tight that they become a forest. Dense. Black. Blocking views. I need to, have to, see the land spreading wide before me if I’m exposed for too long to miles of thick woods.

Likewise, I prefer my land flat.

All of that said, time and age and exposure to geography beyond the prairie have resolved some of those space and landscape issues for me. I can, within limits, appreciate terrain that rolls and rises, trees that clump into more than a shelter belt around a farmhouse.

I can appreciate, too, geological anomalies like Ship Rock, a natural formation jutting out of seemingly nowhere from the trees that crowd State Highway 21 in Adams County near Coloma in central Wisconsin.

Ship Rock is located next to Wisconsin Highway 21 in the central part of the state.

Whenever I pass by Ship Rock, which has been numerous times since my second daughter moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, in December 2010, I am awestruck by this isolated pinnacle of Cambrian sandstone. Finally, this past summer, my husband, teenaged son and I stopped to climb around the base of the rock cropping and to photograph it (me mostly photographing rather than climbing).

Ship Rock rises from the flat landscape, a surprise in the Wisconsin woods.

My husband walks across the rocks below the looming Ship Rock.

If you can ignore the distracting graffiti, then you can appreciate the nuances of the mottled stone, the ferns that tuck into crevices, the surprise of this Ship Rock docked in the most unexpected of places. The rock formation truly does resemble a ship.

I am surprised by the ferns that grow in the tight spaces between rocks.

Grass sweeps between rocks in this August 2011 image taken at Ship Rock.

A month ago while traveling past Ship Rock, I snapped a photo. The ship seemed forlorn and exposed among the deciduous trees stripped of their summer greenery. Yet she also appeared threatening, a looming presence rising dark and foreboding above the land awash in snow.

I could appreciate her, even if she wasn’t a grain elevator or a water tower, a silo or a cluster of trees breaking a prairie vista.

Ship Rock, photographed from the passenger window of our van at highway speeds in December.

CLICK HERE for more information about Adams County, Wisconsin.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts from a Minnesotan now that winter has arrived January 24, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:54 AM
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Even I'll admit that snow brings a certain beauty to the landscape, including this view of my neighbor's yard.

AS UN-MINNESOTAN as this may sound, I don’t particularly like winter. I’d grown rather fond of the unusual 50-degree temps earlier this month and a landscape free of snow.

Yet I knew better than to get all smug about the weather, realizing that, at any time, the proverbial shoe (or boot) would drop.

No fashion boots for me...I wear practical Northwest Territory boots.

It did, with temperatures plummeting to below and barely above zero followed by two measurable snowfalls within the past several days.

Snow means work, aka shoveling snow.

Snow means walking with trepidation.

I wasn’t always fearful of walking across snowy or icy sidewalks, driveways or parking lots. But then 3 ½ years ago I had total right hip replacement surgery because of severe osteoarthritis.

I would like to keep that expensive ceramic implant intact for another 17 years. So I tread with caution, eyes locked on whatever slick surface I must traverse. I will myself not to fall. Thus far, the strategy has worked to keep me upright and out of the hospital.

Despite my winter worries, I still shovel snow. However, I questioned the sanity of that effort on Monday as I crunched my way across the ice-glazed, snowy yard toward the sidewalk encrusted in snow and ice.

The car my son drives, encased in ice on Monday. Freezing rain fell before the snow. He walked to school.

I didn’t exactly rush my way through snow removal. More like half-skated.

By the time I finished clearing the sidewalk and the end of the driveway, I truly wanted to give up and leave the rest for the husband or the 17-year-old. But winter wasn’t about to defeat me.

I may not like her, but I sure as heck won’t allow her to get the best of me.

A city of Faribault snow plow spreads salt and sand onto the street by my house on Monday.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling