Day 3… Gorgeous canola fields, really good coffee from a local shop in Grand Forks called Urban Stampede before we got on the road, lakes and marshes and wild birds aplenty in Eastern North Dakota, big silos on beautiful farms, and then… Da da da dum… Western North Dakota and the smell of money, dirt, oil, and a hundred thousand men living in temporary housing. How depressing… And yes I know we need the oil, use the oil, and we’re currently on a road trip made possible by oil… I’m not an idiot. It’s just so depressing to see the wasteland of what once was beautiful land. It’s been so mismanaged that the growth of the boom is speeding past all possibility of keeping up with the devastating side effects. In typical fashion we jumped in fast and furious for the money before forming a plan to properly handle the process. It’s surreal there. Strange and unsettling.
Luckily we passed through many other amazing and stunning places. It took awhile and a few miles but we put it behind us with only a few comments to the effect of what the frack?!
Tomorrow we head to Glacier and beyond… More beauty to see, more miles to put behind us as we head toward the northwest.
In other news Spam turned 75 today!
