North Dakota

    Although I have crossed the country by car or RV 5 or 6 times, none of my journeys had taken me to North Dakota.  The eastern part is flat.  Not much else to say.  The towns aren't very appealing and I wonder what in the world would hold someone here.  

    I expected to see a fracking well every mile or so.  There was none in the eastern part of the state along Route 2.  There are a lot of wells in the vicinity of Parshall Bay, where we are staying tonight, although most of them are oil wells.  Stefani's phone says ND is now second in oil production in the US.  If there are more people here because of the boom, there isn't much evidence of it.  This state is fairly empty if you aren't in a city.  We went through Minot today searching for a grocery store.  That place is full of traffic, but the state fair started today.  Just a snapshot is all we will ever get.  

    To my surprise, we saw at least 200 large windmills operating nearby our route.  The state generates 16% of its electrical energy via wind according to the phone.  Again a snapshot, but there appears to be plenty of wind here.  The windmills were rotating nicely.  

    Tomorrow, we will post pictures (to be taken) of bright yellow canola fields, which are flowering now.  It looks like something from the Wizard of Oz.  (Yesterday, we learned that Judy Garland was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.)  Sometimes, the yellow fields are planted adjacent to the blue flowered crop that we think is linseed. It is beautiful. At other times, the canola fields lie behind stands of deep green cattails. 

    Went past the geographical center of the US.  We couldn't have been more than 200 miles from Canada.  I am sure I have heard this stat before, but it is still hard to get one's head around.  

    Tomorrow is Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  No reservations and no expectations. For whatever reason, I have yearned to see unspoiled grasslands.  

    Not sure why I waited until over 3 weeks in to start chiming in on the blog.  I have had quite a few work assignments over the first part of the trip, which I have often been working on while Stef was blogging.  Then there were the many guitar nights.  It's not TV - we haven't seen TV of any kind since Buffalo. Cheers!