Pete sees me as I walk into the Pirogue Grille before the bartender/maitre de does. His eyes light up. Pete is looking for someone to talk to. Luckily for Pete, so am I.

Unluckily for me, Pete is drunk. There are two glasses in front of him, both half-consumed. One I make out to be an old-fashioned. The other might just be straight whiskey. There are two seats at the bar. One is in the far corner, the other is next to Pete. I choose Pete over solidarity. I’ve had enough solidarity over the last three days. I sit.

Pete can tell right away that I’m not from here, despite my flannel shirt. Maybe it’s the skinny jeans. Maybe it’s the haircut. Who knows what it is. He asks me where I’m from. I tell him I’m from Washington, DC. I explain the road trip thing. He immediately wants to buy me an old-fashioned, but I’m driving. He seems upset so I let him buy me a Deschutes Black Butte Porter.

Pete talks. And talks. And talks. He tells me that I chose the wrong restaurant. This one is to bourgeois. I chose the restaurant, I explain, because it was a recommendation from a former colleague and because it is TripAdvisor’s number one restaurant in Bismarck. And, let’s be real, I like bourgeois things.

Pete has a lot of theories about North Dakota. He grew up in Grand Forks. He loves Grand Forks. He lives in Bismarck now because that’s where the good-paying white collar jobs are. He thinks North Dakota should be split into Western North Dakota and Eastern North Dakota. Like, actually split into two separate states. “Bismarck makes Fargo and Grand Forks look like Greenwich Village” he repeats to me multiple times.

The bartenders are annoyed by Pete. One of them wants him to leave, but I keep him out of trouble (i.e. I slow down his drinking) by asking him questions. I ask him what it was like in Grand Forks during the flood of 1997. The images of that flood, for whatever reason, are still etched in my brain. I truly thought, as a 13 year old, that an American city was destroyed by that flood. Years later, I found out that Grand Forks was doing just fine. Pete confirmed it. I ask him about the economic state of the North Dakota (lowest unemployment rate in the U.S., y’all) and whether it’s just as good as the national media would have you think (Pete: “Hell yeah it is. We are (expletive) riiich.”)

He talked about the metal scene in Grand Forks. He recommended a few bands that I would never listen to and can’t remember the name of already.

Pete wants me to go out to a bar with him, and quite frankly, that’s probably exactly what I need (to go out and talk with people and try to relax), but I don’t like being around drunk people, and Pete is very drunk (so drunk that he was concerned about my ability to drive back to my hotel after drinking one beer and eating a large meal of bison, rice, and vegetables). So I tell him I’m beat from driving (which is true) and he accepts.

I didn’t intend to write about Pete earlier today, but I was struck when I was driving back to my hotel room, by the thought that until Friday, that will probably be the most interaction I have with anyone. And beyond that, Pete will forever in my life be the official representative for the state of North Dakota. And he described North Dakota to me in a way that makes me not like it very much at all. He described North Dakota, the place he grew up and a place that he clearly loves, as a drunk, weird, slightly Canadian, polite, unfriendly, xenophobic, socialist…um, mecca???

Pete held in his hands the ability to shape North Dakota for me. And he did. But he shaped it into a place I don’t really understand and don’t much care to.

As I left, Pete asked me if I was going to write about my trip. I told him that I was writing about it for my personal blog. He looked at me suspiciously and asked if I wrote for Vice or Vanity Fair. I assured him I did not. He then asked that I mention him, use his name, and say that he is a “Badass Motherf****r.”

—

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Bozeman, Montana, which is a bit of an audible (Casper, Wyoming was my original intended destination). I’ve never driven in Montana and have long considered it to be the number one state in America that I hadn’t seen that I wanted to see. Granted, Montana from I-94 is probably not Glacier National Park, but I’m looking forward to seeing Big Sky Country for the first time.

Notes:

-Add these states to the list:
Nevada
Vermont

-Radio in rural America is basically: Christian Talk, Christian Music, Christian Talk, Country, Christian Talk, that one Verve Pipe song

-I’ve listened to very little music and only a few podcasts so far. I’ve relied on either the radio or on the sounds of the road. And it’s a good thing because…

-Somewhere in western Minnesota, I discovered a radio program called “The Swap Shop.” The concept is simple and amazing. There’s a host (if you’re a sports fan/southerner, think Paul Finebaum) who takes calls from people who want to sell things. Here’s a sampling:

Host: Caller?

Caller: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I have three kittens. They’re orange with white stripes. Two males, one female. They’re all de-clawed. Very nice kittens. $25 for one or $50 for all three. I also have a set of wooden shower curtain rings that I’d like to sell for $5. 555-6525. Thanks.

Host. Thank you caller. Caller?

I listened for 5 minutes. People were trying to sell: dogs, cats, stoves, cars, car parts, agricultural equipment, and televisions.

-I took a rural highway from Minneapolis west into South Dakota, before taking a U.S. highway up to I-94 in North Dakota. One of the real advantages of this strategy is you get to see actual towns and people. One of the real downsides is that nearly every tractor trailer that drove by shot up little rocks into the side of my face. At one point, I actually had to check for blood.

-I reached my 24 hour mark (total time driving the car) at the junction of I-29 and US12 in South Dakota.

-Finally, I leave you with this bit of wisdom from the sign in front of a Presbyterian Church in North Dakota: “Big Bang Theory? Give me a break.” –GOD