Interesting day today. After seeing the monster coal drag lines and Mr. Peabody's coal trains hauling coal to wherever, we left the coal mining country and headed up to Minot and on to Stanley, ND. This is the location of the Bakken shale oil fields. A Cedarcreek friend has a friend who worked up here for a few years and the stories he carried back piqued our curiosity. But, first, on the way there, we drove passed a large wind turbine farm with scores of huge wind turbines churning out electrical power. A day or so ago, we passed a large group of buildings with their roofs covered with solar panels. Last night we camped near a hydro-electric power dam. And, now we were heading into the oil boom town of Stanley. The range of different kinds of power sources in such a relatively small geographical area was impressive.
Actually, Stanley did not appear too much the wear for being the center of a boom. I saw no saloons with girls dancing on the balconies, no bath houses offering a clean shave and a bath. There was no shootouts in the street (at least while we were there). Instead, we found a city park with some kids celebrating a birthday with a couple of little furry pups running around loose. So, we stopped there for lunch and a rest.
We continued our tour of Stanley and as we became more sensitive to the sights that implied "boom" we began to see a larger affect on the community than first realized. Especially, since the boom is on its way to bust now. There were several multiple apartment dwellings under construction and several obviously on hold as the economy slows. There were other things that showed, as well, that a boom had occurred, like five sets of siding rails, an over abundance of building material retailers, a seeming lack of churches in the numbers one typically encounters in a community this size.
Then there was the fringes of town. It was here that the oil industry was still at work. There were many oil pumps tilting slowly up and down with several large collecting tanks nearby. Big pumps new pumps, not little old rusty ones like we commonly see in Oklahoma, for example. Then there were the huge water trucks parked all around that carried water to the fields for fracking of the shale. And, maybe that's the sign the boom is slowing. The pumps were pumping and trucks were parked which meant the shale had already been fracked and the major employment processes were slowing down. All that seemed to be left was the sparkling new pumps merrily humping away unattended. Oh well, easy come easy go.
We headed on back down to Lake Sakakawea for the night. We're now camped at a large but empty COE campground on the upper end of the lake. Most campsites are out in the open, as is the one we're in, but this time of the year the sun is welcome as temps are running a bit cooler than summer time. And, out in the open is good for satellite TV reception, too. So, I'm listening to the incessant news coverage of the Pope's visit.
Tomorrow we head for Teddy Roosevelt National Park.
