Old Tractor in the Fencerow

I lived for many years in an apartment a few blocks from the beautiful North Dakota Capitol grounds. It was a walkable neighborhood that had restaurants, stores, parks and libraries all within walking distance.  I could handle most of my daily needs by walking or biking:" a true "15-minute city". The beauty of the city is being blotted out by ugly development on all sides. Photo Wikimedia Commons  An appointment in Bismarck today was a magical mystery tour of the Bakken.  It was a sort of "There and Back Again" to quote Tolkien, a trip through Mordor to the golden capital of Minas Tirith. It has been a long time since we drove there, but in an age when driving hundreds of miles for a single appointment feels gluttonous and wasteful, I wish we had other options, especially as the air was again filled with haze from climate-driven fires in Canada today and the AQI was around 180. A regular, twice daily (each way) bus or rail service between the major regional cit...