Highway 2 -- North, north, north United States. The furthest North freeway in the US. We followed it East from Shelby, MT, all the way to Minot, ND -- it continues further to the East, though I don't think anyone has actually dared to see JUST HOW FAR IT ACTUALLY GOES. To the West, it stretches all the way to Hawaii. Or so I hear.

Monday we booked it on over here to Minot. Weston, Chris and Jorge traveling in one vehicle got here a couple hours ahead of Tim and his pretty little family, who drove through a massive thunder storm. Blowing-construction-signs-across-the-street massive.

Minot is a pretty big city, evidenced by the requisite population of fast food chains and a super wal-mart. The North Dakota State Fair is pretty massive -- big grandstand entertainment including Carrie Underwood, Steve Miller Band, Keith Urban and the like; 10 free stages, one of which has us doing our happy little act three times a day.

Fairs, especially the carnivals, are interesting places. The only carnival-esque experience I had growing up was at Lagoon, an amusement park in North-Central Utah. There you have the rides, the games, the booths, the food stands and the everything else, I think deliberately set up to imitate a carnival, but with a few major differences: it's paved (so no dust), it's pretty cheap (because you pay for most of it at the gate), and it's staffed by teenagers. Real carnivals are dusty, hot, expensive (five bucks for two dart throws?), and staffed mostly by old, craggy, chain-smoking dudes. Scary to walk the kids past. No wonder these places are dying out -- it's gross.

That being said, it's a totally different beast than Lagoon, or even the carnival that rides through our part of Colorado every year and sets up camp in the mall parking lot. People in the Boulder area are not hurting for things to do. Even the poorest are pretty well off, and most laborers are not hard laborers. For a town like Shelby, MT, the fair is a big thing -- possibly THE big thing all year. They don't have Lagoon, or Six Flags, or the local water park to hang out at all year; there are not big events a few miles away happening every weekend; they work hard, and amusement is a different thing than to us cooshy lifers. The fair is the big thing -- they enjoy it when it comes.

It was interesting to see the confluence of cultures -- the older folks still wear the boots and wranglers and flannel shirts; younger, you still get boots, but they're usually wearing gap on top, or cowboy hats and nike airs. And we saw a group of highly-pierced punks hanging out at the rodeo. Cool.

Speaking of rodeo. Watched some regional competition rounds of calf roping and bronco riding. I always thought it was bizarre when they did rodeos at the Salt Palace in downtown Salt Lake City. Now I get it a little more -- plain country, Montana, that's how people up here survive. I don't know how much calf roping actually gets done anymore, but at least not long ago this was a living -- if you couldn't catch a calf, heard cattle, tame a horse, and master the elements, you dead. The community celebrated the skills that kept them alive. Not to mention that people like to show off, and you show off in ways that can be measured -- everyone rides a horse? Everyone can tell who's best at riding a horse, so let's have a contest.

Medieval / Renaissance, you got what? Pageants, jousts, sword fighting -- celebrating the skills and abilities that kept kingdoms strong and armies powerful. Fencing: a sport that grew out of a martial art. Even the Olympics originally started with events that mirrored war, both ancient and modern -- javelin, discus; equestrian events, rifle shooting and archery.

And, of course, ballroom dancing.