Rabbits, Big Sky Country, Drive To ND, North Dakota Candle Lights - Sunday
I was walking around the lobby of the hotel yesterday morning after getting coffee and looked out the window to see a bunch of wild rabbits roaming all over. They have oodles of them all around the place.
They looked like they are spawn of a domestic rabbit, given the black color living around Billings Mt. That is NOT a normal color for the snowy north, that I have ever seen anyway.
We were on the road around 9am and headed east with a nice largely clear sky. It was amazing to have the temps in the high 50s and low 60s F which is SO much different from prior years where it was snowy and shitty.
The eastern part of Montana is really quite flat, not nearly as much as North Dakota.
We made it to North Dakota and it is just as flat as I remember. Nicely the traffic is about as sparse as the trees and we made good time.
The Bakken is still a spot for oil drilling. There are still a lot of active rigs around the west side of the state that are diving down to try and find that crunchy crude.
We got around Williston and stopped for gas. We were back on Hwy 2 only 800 miles east of the farm.
All of the oil wells along the hwy are burning off the gases that could totally be captured. Those flares light up the nights and when it is snow covered mid winter there is a pretty cool look. I am fine with no snow but it will be hitting tonight into tomorrow.
The rigs are still up in many places but there is FAR less of a rush now. Mid 00s the entire Williston area was literally like the old west and miners. This time it was black gold. Williston went from a farm town to a bustling city really quickly.
THIS is North Dakota. Flat, sparse, treeless, and more than 180 degrees visibility in any direction.
We hit Minot by 5pm and the boys quickly made themselves comfy.
Today I need to pickup some stuff in town, go check the fly fishing section at Scheels, we will go to the book store one of these days, and I want to take J to the music shop to see if he could use anything else for his bass. I have some tasks around the house for my MIL that I will do today.
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hive Posting Streak Days (since 5/25/20) | 1681 | 2,047 | 2,009 | / | 2 |
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Nostr
Interesting that they are burning off the gas, as a kid I saw that in Cincinnati from the refinery near our town.
In the Pacific Northwest it's completely illegal, my son works for the refinery and tells me if they get a flare they get fined big-time!!
So much regulation here!!
When my kids were little, we drove from Minnesota to western Montana and back nearly every summer. They had a Road Bingo game to pass time, but we decided we needed to invent our own version for North Dakota, including things like oil rigs and road kill.
We forgot to bring our bingo sets with us this time. With the number of dead deer and oil wells just between Williston and the MT border it would have filled a few cards.
HA HA! I can imagine!
Wow! What a beautiful scenery.. it calms our mind and appreciate the beauty of the nature.
North Dakota is a whole different world for sure.
I always wondered whether there was a way to use those burning flares to generate power in one way or another. If you have fire, you can make steam, right? And with enough steam, one could spin a turbine.
Exactly. There must be a way to utilize the gas in some way to minimize the waste, that would be economical for the companies to install.