Last night I stayed in Dickinson, ND, where the oil boom is
in full swing. Half the vehicles at the hotel were trucks covered in oilfield
red dust, the hotel prices were about 50% higher than I’ve seen so far (although I found a last
minute deal through hotels.com), and all of the hotels and restaurants look
like they’ve been built in the past 3 years, which they probably have. I wonder
what this place will look like when the boom goes bust.
This morning Scout (my gps) found me a tiny, delightful
little espresso place. Amazingly, there is no Starbucks here yet, although a
new building right across the street looks suspiciously Starbucks-ish. Anyway,
what I had this morning was worlds better than Starbucks and accompanied by a
nice chat with 3 locals, the four of us basically filling the place. Two of
them said they hated the boom town aspect of things and feared for the future
of the town. But the other one, a local business owner, says her business, a
GNC (one of those nutrition and vitamin places), has gone from $100K per year
to closer to a million, so she’s not complaining. Apparently, protein
supplements are big with the oil workers. Another said that yesterday he’d witnessed
a 25-year-old at Menards buy $1000 worth of stuff with cash.
Yesterday I visited Pompey’s Pillar National Monument and
Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Pompey’s Pillar’s claim to fame is William
Clark’s (of Lewis and Clark) signature carved into the base of a big rock which you can climb to the top of
for a nice view. It’s named after Sacajawea’s son who Clark nicknamed “Pomp”.
Everything to be seen there can be
easily seen in about a half hour, but it’s worth a stop.
TRNP is another one of thos places I wish I had a bit more
time at. I did the 36-mile loop drive through, stopping for several enjoyable
little hikes. There are about 150 wild horses in the park, and I saw two bands
of them, from a distance. Coming back from one of the hikes a woman stopped me
and asked if I remember the colors of the horses in the band I’d seen. She is a
volunteer horse-tracker, who comes out here from San Diego twice a year to
track the status of the various bands. She showed me a notebook full of
pictures, but I could not swear to whom I’d seen.
At one point I drove around a corner and thought, geez, what
is that huge black boulder doing in the road? Buffalo! Lots of them!
Bless me father, for I have sinned. Last night in addition
to two manhattans, I had the most sinfully delicious dessert in memory, an Apple
Chimi Cheesecake at Applebee’s. “Creamy cheesecake and caramel apples wrapped
in a tortilla shell and lightly fried. We roll it in cinnamon sugar and place
it on a bed of roasted apples. Served with ice cream and topped with caramel
sauce.” God that was good. (I did have some real food with dinner too.) Stopped at another Applebee’s for lunch, and salivated over that description
again, but I’ve managed to limit myself to just a salad today.
Tonight I'm in Fargo, at Ann and Ed's house. Ann is a friend from my 2005 cross-country bike tour, and I had a very nice visit with her this evening. Tomorrow I'm headed for Duluth, which I had been thinking was right on the border with Michigan. Hmmm.... I seemed to have forgotten about Wisconsin.....
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| In Teddy Roosevelt National Park |
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| Salem Sue, the largest Holstein in the world. I also passed the largest Buffalo and the largest Sandhill Crane, but they did not seem as blogworthy |
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| This rather large critter crossed my path at TRNP, but did not seem to have a rattle attached. Probably a bull snake? |
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| Yellowstone River from TRNP |
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