I was not looking forward to riding in North Dakota. I somehow had the view that North Dakota would look a bit like a moon scape with long, endless miles of nothingness. (My apologies to those of you from this state). There have been two major surprises about our ride here. One is that it in the northwest part of the state, drilling for oil has become what one person called a "Gold Rush". I had no idea that oil was such a hot commodity here. And it is doing wonders for the economy of North Dakota. We had heard that the state had not been much affected by the down economy in other parts of the nation. Now we know why. Frankly, the same was true in far eastern Montana. When we pull into a RV Park, it is full of workers who have come from West Texas and other parts of the nation to work on the oil rigs. Who knew?
The other surprise has been the astounding beauty of the state. I'm not sure if it is a product of much spring rain, or if it is always like this, but North Dakota has just been astonishingly beautiful. Today we rode by lake after lake, saw a flock of Pelicans soaring over us, and have seen golden, yellow canola (not safflower as I indicated yesterday), and blue flax fields. By the way, for you flax lovers, we are in the flax capitol of the United States right now. I'm learning a lot about flax that I will pass along in a later blog.
I will try to download two pictures. One of an oil rig with cattle in the background...a picture of the old and new in North Dakota. The other is of the Canola fields taken today.
By the way we had a wonderful 80 mile ride from Stanton to Goodrich, ND. The wind was our friend today and we were "in camp' by 2 p.m. Pretty fast for a couple old dudes...even with the wind.
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