Sunday, 18 July 2021
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| today's route |
I passed a sign advertising the Makoti Threshing Show, and I looked it up out of curiosity. Makoti is a tiny town east of Parshall on the map above. I'd just missed this show by a week - it was held July 9-11 this year, which was its 61st annual year. During the event they had an antique tractor pull, pumpkin judging, a magic show, Bessie Bingo? (you got me), a tractor barrel roll, a chili cookoff, a Dutch oven cookoff, parades both days (presumably including farm equipment), a flea market, threshing machines (of course), an operating sawmill, an operating shingle mill, and a chainsaw carving demonstration. And for this amazing bounty of entertainment, they were charging only $10 for people 18 and over. It sounds like a hoot.
I passed a sign telling me I was crossing the Continental Divide, at 2,220'.
North Dakota has a town called Max. It has 334 residents and was begun in 1906 when a railroad line came through. The town was originally called Junction, because it was a junction for 2 railroad lines. But a local farmer, who was also the first postmaster, had a son named Max, who would ask folks if they were coming to pick up mail at "his" post office. So residents started calling it Max's Post Office and, eventually, just Max. Aren't people interesting?
I passed more pelicans and lots of gulls.
I passed a decent-sized cemetery with no town anywhere at all nearby. I wondered if maybe there was once a town here, and if that's how the cemetery was established?
I've been seeing lots of bee boxes, always out in the middle of nothing.
I passed the town of Garrison, "Walleye Capital of the World," they proclaim, and "Home of Wally the Walleye." Turns out Wally is a 26' long fiberglass sculpture of a walleye that's in the city park on Main Street. Garrison is a fair-size town with more than 1,400 residents, but is clearly more interested in the local fish population.
I passed another field of the crop with blue flowers, more fields of canola, and more fields of a variety of crops. It seems like North Dakota could single-handedly feed the nation.
I passed a place labeled E-07 Missile Launch Site and was now able to recognize it from having seen the one up near Cooperstown. Though the site I toured has been closed (except for tourism) because of the START agreement, there are other sites here in ND and in other states that are still fully operational. This area may be one of them.
Just after a small town called White Shield, I passed a large cemetery called Old Scout Cemetery, and something about it made me think it was an Indian cemetery, so I looked it up. That's just what it is, and some of the men buried here served with Lt. Col. Custer at Little Big Horn. Others served in the US military in more recent times. There's some fascinating history here, and I've got a link to some of it. https://www.beautifulbadlandsnd.com/old-scouts-cemetery
We stopped for a leg-stretch at Parshall, and the housing made me wonder if we were on a Reservation. Much of the housing looked prefab and standardized, with most units being duplexes. I was curious and looked it up and yes, from back at that cemetery near White Shield including land far west and south of Parshall it's all Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. You can see it as the large area in pink in the map above.
I was still following Lake Sakakawea to the extent the road let me, and got glimpses of it now and then. It's an enormous lake, and the map above shows only a piece of it.
And then I was driving along, minding my own business, when suddenly the ground seemed to fall away. Not fall away like in a mudslide, but fall away as in the edge of a gorge. I think I'd come to what's geographically known as the Missouri Plateau, which is part of the Great Plains and includes vast grasslands, but also slopes up from the prairie pothole region I've just spent a lot of time in. The Badlands in the far west are part of this Plateau, where the Little Missouri River carved a 600' deep canyon. I'm guessing the canyons I was seeing now were carved by the Missouri River itself - the river that was dammed to make Lake Sakakawea, and the river that Lewis & Clark traveled. Because it's the Missouri River that the road I was on followed for the rest of my drive.
I started seeing working oil wells in this area. Also a horse ranch and many crop fields.
I passed a missile control facility, like Oscar-0 that I'd toured, only this one wasn't labeled and I'm guessing it's still very much operational. I wouldn't have known what it was if I hadn't had that tour.
I saw Farmers Union Grain Elevators at most of the towns along my drive.
I started seeing multiple oil wells in clusters, I guess working hard on one particular patch of oil. I found one cluster of 25 oil wells, all right next to each other. Really, 25 of them right next to each other, all working away. I saw another cluster of 10 and then more clusters as I drove along. I'm not used to that.
And I saw lots of oil field equipment, of course, stored along the way.
I passed a herd of Belted Swiss.
My "check engine" light started flashing again, but only about 5 times and then it stopped.
Lots of the hills in this area had passing lanes, unusual to my eyes after driving so long in the east where the roads were so flat that you could safely see a long way ahead for passing.
Then I came to a long long section of road construction, followed immediately by a 7% downhill slope. For those who aren't believing me when I say there are hills in North Dakota, here's your proof.
And then I was down in a valley at the town of Williston. I'm not sure but I think the local folks pronounce this with the accent on the 2nd syllable. The population here leaped from 14,700 in 2010 to an estimated 29,700 in 2020, thanks to the oil boom. Local folks complained to me that the town's economy has always been a boom-and-bust cycle; I suppose they appreciate the boom part but it sounded like they'd prefer a more stable economy.
Williston is sitting on top of the Bakken formation, which geologists think rivals Prudhoe Bay in Alaska for possible oil production. And I've seen what Prudhoe Bay meant to Alaska's economy (and the societal questions it posed), so I'm guessing North Dakota may see some interesting changes and challenges coming soon.
But Williston also has a thriving agriculture economy and, because of proximity to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park's North Unit, it has some tourism as well.
The tourist facilities, though, could use a re-think. I stayed in one of the few available campgrounds in the area, and I suppose it was okay, but Buffalo Trails describes more than just the name of the campground.
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