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Grand Forks Herald
LARIMORE, N.D. -- In the past decade, the U.S. Highway 2 Rest Area here has gone from a dump to a delight. Along the way, it's even gone away.
To most people, it's still just a temporary destination, a place to ponder the world while waiting to continue on a journey.
And if it's literature you desire during your temporary stay, there's plenty of pamphlets touting regional tourist attractions and North Dakota highway maps to guide you on your way.
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Just don't toss the paper around or make a mess of the place. That tends to upset Dennis Hoff, whose job it is to keep the Larimore rest area in tip-top shape.
He must be doing something right. This year, he is one of two winners of the state Department of Transportation's Best Rest Area Custodian Service Award. The other winner is Wayne Kleven, who runs the Crystal Springs rest area along Interstate 94, nine miles west of Medina.
"It's very time consuming, but it's nice to hear comments from people when they stop," Hoff said as he tossed a discarded napkin into a trash bin.
Hoff retired four years ago from a job with the BNSF Railway. Last year, he won the contract to provide custodial services to the Larimore rest area, taking over for Omah Hebert, who cared for the facility for about 20 years.
Dennis and his wife, Tammy, a teacher at Red River High School in Grand Forks, live less than a mile away from the rest area, located at U.S. Highway 2 and N.D. Highway 18, two miles north of Larimore.
They also maintained the rest area for a few years back in the 1970s. The grounds were essentially the same, with entrances from both highways. But the building was different.
"The old place was all wood," he said. "It was old, but it worked."
That was the 1970s. By the 1990s, the old building started showing its age.
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In July 1998, the state closed it down after the facility's water pumping system broke down. It needed new sinks and other repairs. State officials decided it wasn't worth repairing, so they had it demolished.
"People around here put up quite a stink," Hoff said. "It was standing there one day, and the next day it was down."
Larimore officials lobbied, and within weeks, then-state transportation director Marshall Moore promised that the old facility would be replaced.
Larimore had a new rest area within a year.
The brick building contains a high-pitched roof with wooden beams. At the time, architects said it was designed to fit in with the wooded, hilly terrain of the Turtle River valley and nearby Turtle River State Park.
The state doesn't keep visitor numbers at rest areas, but Hoff knows how busy it can be.
He just received six boxes of North Dakota highway maps, which are provided free. Each box contains 250 maps.
"That might last me a month, a month-and-a-half at most," he said.
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He's there at least three times a day, sometimes four or five, during the coldest days of winter and the fiercest heat of summer. Mowing the grounds is a five-hour job.
He paints the picnic tables and shelters and does other maintenance.
"The state helps me out quite a bit," Hoff said. A crew planted a row of evergreen trees along the east edge of the property earlier this summer.
His pet peeve?
"People will see me picking up cigarettes and they'll dump a whole ash tray on the ground, right in front of me -- and I'm a smoker," Hoff said.
He enjoys visiting with families who stop to have a picnic lunch or with people who study the new historical marker, erected in 1996, designating U.S. Highway 2 as the 164th Infantry Memorial Highway for North Dakota.
"There's a lot of work, but this is a pretty good retirement job," he said, "and it's a pretty nice place to work."
