Frontier village people

In Jamestown, North Dakota, yesterday we were lured from the highway by the worldest's largest buffalo. Beneath its massive head, we took turns posing for the same photographs taken by tens of thousands since the creature first went on display in 1959.

The buffalo stood on a cement apron on the edge of Frontier Village. Small wooden buildings, fronted with a boardwalk, lined the town's single street. We stepped first into the insurance office and I leaned over a rail and pretended to operate an old timey adding machine. Hilarious.

In the jail we briefly occupied one of the two cells, acting out another set piece of tourist theater. In the Dentist's office a man mannikin stood with drill in hand looming over a seated woman mannikin, who looked up at him in blank-faced terror. The heavy make-up around her eyes gave her a haunted look. Her wig and long white gloves suggested that maybe she was a recluse forced out into society by a toothache. A sign on the wall said that the dentists of Jamestown sponsored the exhibit "in memory of our pioneer dentists."

In the saloon two mannikins, a floozy and a bartender, stood behind the bar. The former had bright red hair similar to Alix's and wore a black boa around her neck. The bartender was shorter and clearly had started life as a woman. He was wigless but wore a bowler hat, as well as a vest and bow tie; his thick black walrus moustache could not hide the delicate features of a pretty woman mannikin. I went behind the bar and stood between them for a picture.

At the other end of the bar mounted up on the wall was the large head of a deer, which unlike the employees seemed to be period specific. Much of the fur had fallen away from the head, and its lips had pulled back revealing its teeth and giving it a menacing, rabidic expression.

Across the street from the saloon we entered Louis L'Amour's Writing Shack. On a wall, behind plexiglas, were displayed dozens of his paperback western novels. Alix signed a petition to have him honored with a U.S. postage stamp.

After the brief excitement of Frontier Village, we continued west on Interstate 94, listening to episodes of Fresh Air on Alix's ipod. We drove through several rainstorms and passed New Salem Sue, world's largest holstein. Just at dark we reached Theodore Roosevelt National Park and drove five miles north from the interstate,through rugged coulees and hills, to a campground. We spotted several real buffalo along the way.

At our campground site, we popped the top, then Alix set out our modest dinner of sandwiches and chips. We'd had a late lunch at a Green Mill in Fargo (after discovering the downtown restaurants Alix had searched out on the internet were all closed on Sundays).

I took the top bunk, Alix the lower, and she had me read aloud the first chpater of The Golden Compass before we went to sleep.