#26 On Oct 1 we left Mike & Karen & continued our walkbout. That night we stopped at the campground at Fort Peck dam run by the Corps of Engineers. This was our first stay at a COE campground & we were plesantly surprised at the spacious sites. The sites were long & level & their was a lot of room between them. As it was after Labor Day there were many open sites to choose from. This campground is at Fort Peck Lake on the Missouri River & I imagine it is very busy during the summer.
The next day we drove into the NW corner of North Dakota. At Williston & Watford City we were surprised at all of the bustling activity with all kinds of trucks going in every direction. This is an oil boom area with oil wells sprouting up everywhere because of the fracking activity on private lands. There are many trailer parks & modular dormitory housing areas for the workers. We understand that anyone willing to work can get a job in this area. Even with all the well sites going up in many fields the work is being done in a very systematic manner & everything looks very orderly except for the dust & mud. Many of the small towns we passed were enjoying the boom. Because of the increase in revenues the small towns are improving or replacing streets, sidewalks & curbing as well as sewer systems. It was very encouraging to see all of this activity when you compare it to other parts of the country.
Our stop on Oct 2 was at Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit. This is a nice campground & the first night there we were one of about 6 rigs in the campground. The next day we visited the Visitors Center & drove through the park. It was rainy in the morning & in the early afternoon the rain turned to snow. But by late afternoon the weather warmed & it turned back to rain & washed off the snow. That night we were the only ones in the campground.
Oct 4 we drove to Hazen, ND and stayed at the city RV park on the edge of town. The next day we drove the 30 miles to the restored Fort Mandan near where Lewis & Clark spent the first winter of their journey across the continent. The young men who gave the talk at both the Visitor Center & the fort were very knowledgable & gave us lots of information about the Corps of Discovery. As we had driven across ND we had seen several large industrial plants & when we asked about them we were told that they were processing plants for coal. They are strip mining for coal & processing it into natural gas that is then put in pipelines & sent to the eastern US for power production & heat.
The young man telling us about it was very proud of his state & how they were able to do all of this without federal interference because it was on state & private land. At current consumption rates it is estimated that the coal will last for 800 years. All of this oil, coal & natural gas production is taking place with very little pollution. Shows what can happen if you keep the federal government regulators out of things they know nothing about.
