Visiting Williston

On Saturday morning October 29 I took a 400+ mile loop from Bismarck ND via Minot to Williston ND, down to Dickinson ND back to Bismarck.

Some sound bites from my tour.

1. A ethanol plant at Washburn ND is using waste heat from a coal fired electrical generating plant.

2. Wind generators to many to count, 100+ north of Washburn

on ND 83

3. Bright green Durum wheat fields as I approached Minot. (ND farmers don't farm acres, they farm sections)

4. Traveling west on ND 2, A farmer combining corn with 3 JD 9870 combines with 12 row heads, 4 semis and two grain carts. This could be a custom combiner.

5. ND 2 runs west about fifty miles south of the Canadian border

5. The durum wheat fields are more frequent as I traveled west. The bright green contrasted with the rest of the fall tan landscape.

6. About half way between Minot and Williston, West of Stanley ND, oil wells started to appear, as well as oil tankers.

7. Went by a ranch with a herd of twenty to thirty horses being rounded up by two cowboys on four wheelers.

8. Farmsteads seemed very well maintained with most appearing to have a fresh coat of paint.

9. Went by a abandoned farmstead with five fifth wheel trailers parked in a circle.

10. On the four lane ND 2 highway, speed dropped from 80 to stop and go in Williston due to oil tanker and construction equipment traffic.

11. To enhance the confusion there was a farmer with a nitrogen applicator, properly folded to 16 feet wide pulled by a quad trak 525 Case/IH.

12. Acres of temporary housing as ND 2 turned south to Williston.

12. Temporary housing was in many forms. From ten in a row bunk house size unit to a area with fifty or sixty ten by twelve individual travel trailers. These are called man camps. Entertainment is provided with temporary workers from Las Vegas, rumor has it.

13. At he Wall Mart store in Williston, as you enter there are pallets of winter ware for men. They say the turnover is several pallets a hour. Wall Mart reports it is the most profitable store they have despite a $20 per hour age for workers.

14. The McDonalds (fast food?) had a queue of about twenty people out side the store.

15. The vehicles of choice in Williston seemed to be Peterbilt or Ford F350 four door.

16. I was told not to take 85 south out of Williston as it was all broken up. Wrong! It was freshly paved to Watford City. Traffic was stop and go to 35 MPH with speed increasing as Watford was approached.

17. Filled up with gas in area. Unleaded $3.59. E-10 $3.39, E-30 $3.19 and E-85 $2.87. The E-85 was guaranteed to be at least 60% ethanol.

18. Some things seen on I94 headed toward Bismarck: two truck loads of generator powered lights for night work, all sorts of equipment for earth moving on trucks. Prefab housing of all sorts and pipe.

19. ND will be number one oil producer by 2014. The may be number one in energy production now with natural gas, oil, electricity, bio fuels and food.