Boom town

This was the scene directly outside our motel room in International Falls this morning:

Every middle aged man's dream!  No waiting in line here for the can.

Overcast, cold, and grey this morning. We opted not to cross back into Canada, but that meant we couldn't say Hey! to our new found friends at border patrol.  

We decided to stay in the States for now as the weather is so bad it seemed pointless to take a much longer scenic route thru Canada when the "scene" there is the same as here- grey, icy, leafless.

We pulled into a service station with a quarter tank full 30 miles outside of Brainerd just as Vanna died.  She refused to start and we thought we were done, but on the outside chance there was water in her fuel line we filled her tank and tried again.  After four tries she started. I blame the water in the ethanol.  they add to gasoline here.

We drove by the turnoff for Itasca State Park, the headwaters of the Mississippi River.  Why not stop? Because it was SNOWING.

On to North Dakota 3 hours later.

Signs point to Fargo, but no detour to Fargo; we headed instead to Watford City, the closest town to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

The landscape in the eastern part of the state is dominated by very large wheat and corn farms

We passed thru the geographical center of North America in Rugby, North Dakota.

The landscape changed dramatically in central and western North Dakota.  Oil wells were everywhere and tanker trucks were inescapable.  It's impossible to exaggerate the number of semis on these 70 mph two lane highways or the amount of activity and construction happening here. It is like nothing we have ever seen or experienced. We guess with all the truckers and construction workers men must outnumber women here ten to one.

Watford City is dusty and unattractive.  Everything appears to be hastily constructed for the boom and workers are housed in trailers and temporary housing.

This is one of those temporary housing constructions directly behind our motel.  They are everywhere.  They call them "man camps".

Neither google maps nor mapquest could locate our motel, as everything is so new here.

Our motel parking lot is filled with tanker trucks.  

 It feels like the Wild West, but the horses have been replaced by tanker trucks.

I think Teddy would cry if he could see what the oil boom has done to his beloved Badlands.

Update:  I overestimated the number of women here. We got Chinese takeout tonight at a huge and packed restaurant. The ONLY woman there was the cashier.

We wonder how social order is maintained here.

Search "Watford City" at The New York Times for the story "An Oil Town Where Men are Many and Women are Hounded". 

Fascinating and frightening article.