As I Knelt To Focus my Camera, the Pungent Odor of Wet Old Mowed Hay Arose From Around the Roots of These Spring Blooms.
"But once we caught on, of course, nothing could keep us off these roads, weekends, evenings, vacations. We have become real secondary-road motorcycle buffs and found there are things you learn as you go. .. We have learned how to spot the good ones on a map, for example. If the line wiggles, that’s good. That means hills. If it appears to be the main route from a town to a city, that’s bad. The best ones always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker."
2Mi West of Eden Valley, MN. Flowers along the route are often mentioned in ZMM. especially in the mountains of Montana. For this reason I started the practice of stoping where-ever I encountered flowers. Thus I stopped here to photograph these red clovers, yellow flowers, and white daises.
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(Photo = 102-0279 ...... ZMM Page = 003 ...... WayPt = 005w)

Ever Cautious Red-winged Blackbirds Keep Their Distance, Eden Valley MN
"There! A huge flock of red-winged blackbirds ascends from nests in the cattails, startled by our sound. I swat Chris’s knee a second time-then I remember he has seen them before. .... Unless you’re fond of hollering you don’t make great conversations on a running cycle. Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them. On sights and sounds, on the mood of the weather and things remembered, on the machine and the countryside you’re in, thinking about things at great leisure and length without being hurried and without feeling you’re losing time."
Photo needed for RWBB in Eden Valley MN & Paynesville MN area. Notes: The two photos in this "Photo Stitch" were taken to show best the Red Winged Blackbirds in this marsh. Several trees on the horizon are rendered hazy because I moved laterally between the two shots, in a futile attempt to move closer to these play-it-safe modern day dinosaurs.
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Route 55 3rd Roadside Rest Area Out of Minneapolis
"Up ahead the other riders, John Sutherland and his wife, Sylvia, have pulled into a roadside picnic area. It’s time to stretch. As I pull my machine beside them Sylvia is taking her helmet off and shaking her hair loose, while John puts his BMW up on the stand. Nothing is said. We have been on so many trips together we know from a glance how one another feels. Right now we are just quiet and looking around. … The picnic benches are abandoned at this hour of the morning. We have the whole place to ourselves. John goes across the grass to a cast-iron pump and starts pumping water to drink."
2Mi East of Paynesville MN is the location of the 3rd Roadside Rest Area (~75 Mi) from Minneapolis and thus is the likely place for their rest-stop. See additional confirming evidence next picture.
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Route 55 3rd Roadside Rest Area Out of Minneapolis (2nd photo)
"Chris wanders down through some trees beyond a grassy knoll to a small stream. I am just staring around."
2Mi East of Paynesville MN As shown in this photo and the previous, this rest area is definitely a "knoll" and has big White-Oak shade trees everywhere in the rest area. Only near the road where there were other types of trees, such as, several Cottonwoods, a Hickory, and an Elm. A web based topographical (topo) map, shows that this rest area is on a finger of dry land surrounded by swamps. A cast iron water pump and a knoll are here, but I don't recall a stream; I must check. Time has passed; the old sturdy concrete block pit toilet buildings have been boarded up & replaced with a flimsy plastic port-a-potty.
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Spring Scenery and Traffic 2Mi West of Kimball MN
"It was all those people in the cars coming the other way," she [Sylvia] says. "The first one looked so sad. And then the next one looked exactly the same way, and then the next one and the next one, they were all the same." .. "Well, you know, work," I repeat. "Monday morning. Half-asleep. Who goes to work Monday morning with a grin?" "It’s just that they looked so lost," she says. "Like they were all dead. Like a funeral procession." (Sylvia Sutherland is one of the four main characters in ZMM.)
I travel ~2Mi West of Kimball MN before I suddenly realize I should photo a Rt55 sign. Although out of travel sequence, it is appropriate for this passage from ZMM. So here it is! However a photo of Rt55 in-coming Minneapolis rush hour traffic, complete with bored faces, is really needed. Do you know anyone who can help with this?
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The Humid Air Is Not Evident In This Photo, But the Grass Is Green, the House Fresh-White, and the Air Free of Smoke!
"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha—which is to demean oneself. That is what I want to talk about in this Chautauqua. ... We’re out of the marshes now, but the air is still so humid you can look straight up directly at the yellow circle of the sun as if there were smoke or smog in the sky. But we’re in the green countryside now. The farmhouses are clean and white and fresh. And there’s no smoke or smog." [End Chapter 1]
Photo substitution for somewhere after Eden Valley, MN. The grass was just as green and homes just as white along Rt 210. West of Fergus Falls, MN. This was a home by a road side rest area near Battle Lake, MN. The Narrator's poetic chapter ending reinforces his fresh clean thoughts for his Chautauquas. These are his philosophy presentations of his entire book which we are now starting off on.
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(Photo = Summer2006 0188 ...... ZMM Page = 16 ...... WayPt = 002m)

Tall Dandelions Color the Roadside
"The road winds on and on - we stop for rests and lunch, exchange small talk, and settle down to the long ride. The beginning fatigue of afternoon balances the excitement of the first day and we move steadily, not fast, not slow. .. We have picked up a southwest side wind, and the cycle cants into the gusts, seemingly by itself, to counter their effect."
Photo needed for 1.5 Mi West of Paynesville MN. Later on, I did experience strong wind. I stopped to get a Movie Clip of the wind rippling the deep grass at the roadside. This will be made available as soon as possible.
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A Grain Storage Facility, Kensington MN
"Lately there’s been a sense of something peculiar about this road, apprehension about something, as if we were being watched or followed. But there is not a car anywhere ahead and in the mirror are only John and Sylvia way behind."
Kensington MN This town greets the ZMM traveler with a Huge Grain Elevator Complex at the town entrance. These agriculture “monuments” mark the skyline of every town all the to Calif! Grain-stores (elevators) are often mentioned by Sven Lindqvist, in his Swedish Newspaper Series about his ZMM Route experiences. We are now beyond the "Thousand Duck Hunting Sloughs" mentioned in ZMM.
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Wide Sweep Of the Fields and Tiny Distant Farm Buildings.
"We are not in the Dakotas yet, but the broad fields show we are getting nearer. Some of them are blue with flax blossoms moving in long waves like the surface of the ocean. The sweep of the hills is greater than before and they now dominate everything else, except the sky, which seems wider. Farmhouses in the distance are so small we can hardly see them. The land is beginning to open up. .. There is no one place or sharp line where the Central Plains end and the Great Plains begin. It’s a gradual change like this that catches you unawares, as if you were sailing out from a choppy coastal harbor, noticed that the waves had taken on a deep swell, and turned back to see that you were out of sight of land. There are fewer trees here and suddenly I am aware they are no longer native. They have been brought here and planted around houses and between fields in rows to break up the wind. But where they haven’t been planted there is no underbrush, no second-growth saplings—only grass, sometimes with wildflowers and weeds, but mostly grass. This is grassland now. We are on the prairie."
Photo substitution for somewhere on way to Breckenridge, MN. Note open flat landscape, in background, as far as the eye can see!
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It's Easy to Miss!! Rt 55 Here Makes an Abrupt Left Turn
" Chris asks, "What are we stopping for?" .. "I think we missed our turn back there," John says. .. I look back and see nothing. "I didn’t see any sign," I say. .. John shakes his head. "Big as a barn door." .. "Really?" .. He and Sylvia both nod. .. He leans over, studies my map and points to where the turn was and then to a freeway overpass beyond it."
4Mi North of Elbow Lake MN Nine miles previous, and unnoticed by the ZMM traveler, Rt55 has "smoothly" joined Rt59. As you see, the obvious main highway (Rt58) here continues straight. However, as shown on the sign, Rt55 makes an abrupt ninety degree turn West. Notice how the land is "Opening Up". The stand of trees at left was probably planted since it is too dry here for trees to sprout from seed and grow on their own.
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Storm Cloudes? Intersection with Interstate 94 Near North Dakota Border
"Storm coming. That may be what has been bothering me. Deliberately shutting it out of mind, but knowing all along that with this humidity and wind it was more than likely. It’s too bad, on the first day, but as I said before, on a cycle you’re in the scene, not just watching it, and storms are definitely part of it. … Continuing to Page 021 We've already crossed this freeway". … "And just now I forgot to tell them about the storm. Things are getting a little unsettling."
Route 59 North of Elbow Lake MN where a potential storm cloud bank is seen above the almost discernable Interstate 94 freeway to right of the I-94 sign.
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The Land Is So Flat Around Here, You Have No Awareness That You Are In a "Valley. Certainly You Can Easily Drive Over This River And Not Even Notice It's Significance!!
"By the time we are out of the Red River Valley the storm clouds are everywhere and almost upon us."
Red River, Border MN&ND. I was actively looking for this river on my 2002 trip. But I zipped right over this bridge and completely missed it!!
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(Photo = Summer2006 0203 ...... ZMM Page = 025 ...... WayPt = 014m)

On and On ..... We Move Down the Endless Straight Road As If Standing Still!
"I have a feeling none of us fully understands what four days on this prairie in July will be like. Memories of car trips across them are always of flatness and great emptiness as far as you can see, extreme monotony and boredom as you drive for hour after hour, getting nowhere, wondering how long this is going to last without a turn in the road, without a change in the land going on and on to the horizon. .. John was worried Sylvia would not be up to the discomfort of this and planned to have her fly to Billings, Montana, but Sylvia and I both talked him out of it. I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn’t mean much. And when thinking about Sylvia’s moods and feelings, I couldn’t see her complaining. .. " [Cont next]
About 15 West of breckenridge, MN. Except for being perfectly flat for hours, this could be my home state of northern Ohio!
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(Photo = Summer2006 0199 ...... ZMM Page = 018 ...... WayPt = 014n)

Humid-Hazy Skies Over Lone Windmill. The Prairie West of the Red River, Which Is the MN - ND Border.
"Also, to arrive in the Rocky Mountains by plane would be to see them in one kind of context, as pretty scenery. But to arrive after days of hard travel across the prairies would be to see them in another way, as a goal, a promised land. If John and I and Chris arrived with this feeling and Sylvia arrived seeing them as "nice" and "pretty," there would be more disharmony among us than we would get from the heat and monotony of the Dakotas. Anyway, I like to talk to her and I’m thinking of myself too." [Cont next]
Some 20 Mi West of Breckenridge, MN. Here I discover my first windmill! This brings to mind page 26 in ZMM where (on this road) the Narrator reports "...then in the brilliance of the next flash that farmhouse . . . that windmill . . . oh, my God, he’s been here! ..." So I stop to photograph this one. The hazy humid sky seen here fits passage above. In Mr. Pirsig's photos of this same area, you will note the perfectly blue sky! This fits Mr. Pirsig's recent confession that the storm and high speed run to escape the rain was fictional. Click here to compare this landscape, with that seen Pirsig’s photos of his original 1968 trip. Look at 3 photos. Will open in new browser.
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Southeastern North Dakota, Like Kansas, "Is Flatter Than a Pancake"!
"In my mind, when I look at these fields, I say to her [Sylvia], "See? -- See?" and I think she does. I hope later she will see and feel a thing about these prairies I have given up talking to others about; a thing that exists here because everything else does not and can be noticed because other things are absent." [Continuing Page 025] "I suddenly notice the land here has flattened into a Euclidean plane. Not a hill, not a bump anywhere. This means we have entered the Red River Valley. We will soon be into the Dakotas." [Later in Chapter 3] "By the time we are out of the Red River Valley the storm clouds are everywhere and almost upon us. .. John and I have discussed the situation in Breckenridge and decided to keep going until we have to stop. .. That shouldn’t be long now. The sun is gone, the wind is blowing cold, and a wall of differing shades of grey looms around us."
20 Mi West of Breckenridge, MN. Having stopped to photograph the lone windmill, I realize this is a good open place to "shoot" my second 360 deg full circle panorama. After you read the instructions, click on the second narrow strip photo at: View 6 panoramas album in new browser window. (Alternate: If you have already viewed a panorama in a second (new) browser window, simply switch to it and advance the second Gallery Picture = http://ww2.usca.edu/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=ZmmRoutePanoramas&id=aab)
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(Photo = 102-0294 ...... ZMM Page = 018 ...... WayPt = 017`|x|' 1355ft)

Yes, the Land Is "Bored" Flat and the Roads Are Even Straighter!! You Better Get Used To It. View Direct West.
"It seems huge, overpowering. The prairie here is huge but above it the hugeness of this ominous grey mass ready to descend is frightening. We are traveling at its mercy now. When and where it will come is nothing we can control. All we can do is watch it move in closer and closer. .. Where the darkest grey has come down to the ground, a town that was seen earlier, some small buildings and a water tower, has disappeared. It will be on us soon now. I don’t see any towns ahead and we are just going to have to run for it. .. I pull up alongside John and throw my hand ahead in a "Speed up!" gesture. He nods and opens up. I let him get ahead a little, then pick up to his speed. The engine responds beautifully—seventy . . . eighty . . . eighty-five . . . we are really feeling the wind now and I drop my head to cut down the resistance . . . ninety. The speedometer needle swings back and forth but the tach reads a steady nine thousand . . . about ninety-five miles an hour . . . and we hold this speed . . . moving. Too fast to focus on the shoulder of the road now . . . I reach forward and flip the headlight switch just for safety. But it is needed anyway. It is getting very dark."
20 Mi West of Breckenridge, MN. Having stopped to photograph a lone windmill here, I realize this is a good open place to "shoot" my second 360 deg full circle panorama.
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(Photo = 102-0298IrfanviewShrp ...... ZMM Page = 025 ...... WayPt = 017`|x|' 1355ft)

We Interrupt the Narrator's Storm Drama Narrative To Show You the Long Lost Site of Pirsig's Most Famous 1968 Photo!
"Up ahead the other riders, John Sutherland and his wife, Sylvia, have pulled into a roadside picnic area. It’s time to stretch."
Just after the "S curve" on Rt 13 and slightly South of, Milnor, ND. This photo offers proof that here, South of Milnor ND, is the physical site of Robert Pirsig's first three photos. These photos are shown in the First Album of this gallery. (For link, click on the single word Gallery above, near top, left of center.) Folks at the Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative told us that their REA Co-op built this picnic area right beside their own Coop Buildings in ~1966, not long prior to the Narrator's 1968 trip. Since the Buell State Park, happens to be adjacent, they also take care of the mowing and maintenance of the park as well as this picnic area.
As the above ZMM passage indicates, the riders needed to stop regularly to rest and stretch. We note that earlier rest stops were mentioned, so, why this rest stop not mentioned? The answer is immediately apparent: This stretch of road from Brekenridge to Oakes is fully occupied with the drama of the lightning storm, the high-speed chase, the brilliant flash of lightning, whereupon Phaedrus see the Ghost! Having a "rest break" here would break all the carefully built drama!! This would not do!!! End of story.
New topic: How did Gary Wegner Find the Robert Pirsig Picnic Canopy Shown Above?. For a long time the geographical location of Pirsig's picnic area has been unknown, despite widespread efforts to the contrary. Finally, Gary Wegner taking leadership, wrote to the County Engineers in the North Dakota Counties of Richland and Sargent. Tim Schulte, Richland County Engineer, replied: “I did some checking with various folks in Richland County and nobody could remember a rest area along State Highway 13 in Richland County. (Continued next photo.)
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(Photo = Summer2006-0217 ...... ZMM Page = 025 ...... WayPt = -017i)

These Commemorative Markers of Buell Camp Are Just West of the REA Picnic Area Shown In Previous Photo.
""
, Milnor, ND. (Continued from previous photo: Finding Robert Pirsig's Picnic Canopy.) Mr. Schulte surmised that this picnic area could have been in front of the Tastee Freez (Dairy Queen), just off of the State Highway near the town of Wyndmere, in the western part of North Dakota's Richland County. He said "If there was a rest area along State Highway 13 it was probably west of Wyndmere in Sargent County.”

Gary then contacted Jennifer Manstrom, Wyndmere School Librarian. She replied: “We have done some asking around and we don't think it was in Wyndmere, but more likely the Hwy 13 rest stop is just west of Milnor, beside the current Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative We think the same shelter is STILL there!. If that isn't it, it may be at Gwinner at the intersection of Hwy 13 and the state highway which goes to Lisbon. I hope this helps! But there never was a canopy at the Wyndmere Tastee Freeze.”

Wonderful!! Getting closer! Next Gary contacted the Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative at Milner. Co-op employee Dayna Speich replied: “Congratulations, you have found the location! The picture was taken just west of [our] Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative (then R.S.R.) building at Milnor, ND along Highway 13.” Later she helped Gary identify a precise map location saying: “On the map it looks like it would be between the ‘A’ and the road to the right.” The location is an historic site. That is why they [Pirsig] probably stopped. Camp Buell State Historic Site is located one-half mile southwest of the junction of ND 13 and County 1. There is a marker on the site commemorating the July 3-4 campsite of the 1863 Sibley expedition.

Gary also contacted Timothy Reed, Research Archeologist, State Historical Society of North Dakota (SHSND), Bismarck, ND who referred to the publication “A Traveler's Companion to North Dakota's State Historic Sites.” See http://www.state.nd.us/hist/museumStore/proddetail.asp?prod=1832.

Gary replied to the folks from ND: “Thanks again Tim, Jennifer, Timothy, and Dayna! North Dakotans are cool and kind!”
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(Photo = Summer2006-0222 ...... ZMM Page = 025 ...... WayPt = -017i)