FARGO (AP) - North Dakota State University sociology professor Gary Goreham has almost perfected his behind-the-wheel writing technique: left hand firmly on the wheel, eyes on the road, right hand scribbling book chapter ideas and to-do lists on a notepad lying on the passenger seat.

Yet, he still occasionally revisits his early morning insights to find indecipherable scrolls.

"When I get to work, I look at my writing, and I go, 'Boy, that's bad penmanship,'" he said.

During Goreham's one-hour drive from his orchard home just past Detroit Lakes, Minn., he's often tempted to fit a constructive task between stretches of listening to Minnesota Public Radio.

Recent reports of the ever-longer hours American commuters are logging on the road surely haven't yielded groans of recognition in this blessed land of the 15-minute spin to work.

Even a Gary Goreham is no Dave Givens, the Californian whose seven-hours-a-day commute won a nationwide contest for the most epic trek to work.

The sociology professor's one-way trip is a half-hour short from qualifying him for the title "extreme commuter" - at 3.4 million people the fastest-growing commuter breed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But Fargo-Moorhead boasts its own growing class of commuters who venture out of the metro area far enough to pass for extreme by North Dakota standards. Even in the face of killer gas prices and occasional problems with illegible handwriting, their commutes involve little of the angst often experienced by counterparts in California and elsewhere.

After having his signature breakfast of peanut butter and jelly toast and filling his thermos with strong coffee, Goreham steps out of his home at 6:30. He pauses to take in his 30-acre property, as if to remind himself why he puts up with the ride ahead: the dewy air, the rolling hills bathed in mellow light, the apple trees that until recently looked like "big pink snowballs."

He and his wife, Jonna, moved to Detroit Lakes two years ago from their Fargo house, which was a mere 10-minute walk to campus.

The way things are going, Goreham and fellow local commuters are in for more company.

The ranks of workers arriving in Fargo-Moorhead from outside the metro area each morning grew by more than 60 percent from 1990 to 2000, to about 6,300, according to the latest U.S. Census data. The number of workers who drive more than 45 minutes to their jobs almost doubled in the same period. Bona fide extreme commuters with rides 90 minutes and longer numbered 1,100 in 2000, or about 1 percent of all workers.

The numbers have been creeping up since. Five years ago, snow-removal crews used to head out about 6 a.m., starting in the Fargo-Moorhead metro area and working their way out, said Kevin Gorder with the state Transportation Department's Fargo office. But as more vehicles started coming in from farther out, the state pushed the snow-removal start time to 4 a.m.

Area real estate agents say that in recent years rural properties have become a hot commodity among Fargo buyers who seem unfazed by rising gas prices. Sales of single-family homes in rural Minnesota and North Dakota jumped more than 50 percent during the past five years.

The steep rise of metro-area home prices made affordable small-town homes more attractive, said Steve Lunde, president of the Fargo-Moorhead Area Association of Realtors. Decent single-family homes in the city start at $100,000. In surrounding communities, $60,000 can buy a spacious home and yard.

But price tags seem to be a secondary factor in the rural property boom, compared to the prospect of a serene small-town lifestyle.

"If you grew up in a big city, you might laugh at this, but there are lots of folks who think Fargo is fairly congested," said state demographer Richard Rathge, who has spotted the streams of blinking headlights flowing into Fargo-Moorhead from early morning flights out of the airport.

When Jamie Vandrovec and her husband, Dan, shared a Fargo apartment as newlyweds, she had 10 goldfish in an aquarium. Like her fish, she felt a little crowded in the two-bedroom place, and she chafed under the constant surveillance of a few nosy neighbors.

Six years ago, the Vandrovecs moved to a farm near Buffalo, about 40 miles from Fargo. Jamie, who works in the pet supplies area of Mills Fleet Farm, now had 45 fish in an outdoor pond, plus two horses, a pony, ducks, chickens, two dogs and a cat. The closest neighbors were half a mile down the road, and instead of the rumble of street traffic, birds and crickets supplied the family's new soundtrack.

"It's much more peaceful and less commotion," said Vandrovec, 27, who recently moved with her husband to a larger house in Wheatland. "To me, Fargo has gotten too big."

Commuting Fargo-style also tends to be a more peaceful experience than the jerky crawl to work in more congested cities, where workers spend an average of 47 tightly wound hours each year stuck in traffic.

"The nice thing about the commute is it really puts distance between work and other parts of your life," Goreham said.