Peace Garden State - Part Dieux...and a Taste of MT

After our brief sojourn at the nuclear missile site we thought it best to continue westerly and, pre Cold War, back to much simpler times.  


We are continuing our retracement of the Lewis and Clark (L&C) Corps of Discovery (Corps) Expedition and have our sights set on Fort Mandan, ND. This is the spot were the Corps spent their first winter with the Hidasta tribe on the westbound leg of the trip and where they met Sakagawea...OK, from this point forward this L&C journey could get very detailed and boring for you guys so I will keep it brief and just say that I had the time of my life and enjoyed it immensely! I will shove in some photos and narrative when it seems appropriate. Howie continues...

Fort Mandan where the L&C Corps spent the winter on the outbound journey with the Hidasta peoples.

Hidasta earthlodge at Ft. Mandan

Interior shot of earthlodge.

The most used piece of equipment on this trip. While ordering lunch at a dive diner on the roadside in Washburn, ND the server completes our order and as 3 flies are buzzing us asks if we'd also like a couple of fly swatters...classy joint!

One of the things about this L&C Expedition is every little City or community organization along the way has to get in on the action. Hey, look over here, L&C slept here for one July night back in 1805, kind of like the George Washington Slept Here signs all throughout the northeast US.



Heading further west thru ND we start seeing more and more oil field developments. We are entering the land of the Bakken Formation where fracking is the rule of the day. From what I understand, fracking involves injecting water under high pressure into shale rock formations where the seams contain oil. The high water pressure forces the previously unrecoverable oil out of the formation and up to the surface. Drill baby drill.

Typical oil fracking site outside of Williston, ND.


Well, they certainly did drill. Only problem, they didn't know what to do with the stuff once they drilled it and pumped it to the surface. We have all of this crude oil but there aren't any pipelines around to move this product to market. Check out a map of western ND, it's a long, long way from any seaports and the basic infrastructure was never really established to support the drill baby drill.


So they improvised...let's get a whole bunch of tanker trucks to go to the gazillion fracking sites we have, collect the crude oil from on site tanks and then haul it to a railroad terminal where we'll get it to market. The railroad engineers called these trains bomb cars. Seems when you pull oil from these fracking sites you also suck in a shit ton of natural gas which is quite volatile in a confined rail car. Years ago I recall reading about one of these train bombs erupting near Montreal and killing some 50 poor souls...drill baby drill.


After about 25 years of this nonsense, the major oil companies saw that fracking was not a very profitable venture. We have seen the signs as we travel thru the western ND area, lots of tanker trucks sitting idle in work yards, huge oil company complexes like Schlumberger, Haliburton, Brown and Root...giants in the oil market...with empty employee parking lots and shuttered windows. It's all coming to an end and, by the by, who's gonna pay to clean up this shit? Yeh, you and me fellow taxpayer, drill baby drill.


We spent a most enjoyable weekend at the Lewis and Clark State Park outside of Williston, ND. I must say that the ND State Parks are quite nice and this one was very comfortable. Lots of decent bike paths amongst the rolling grasslands alongside the Missouri River, quite nice for a sunset and sunrise pedal. And lots of L&C stuff laying about for exploration.

Campsite at Lewis and Clark SP, ND. The Missouri River is off in the distance.

Zoom in on the little white flower. These guys bloom each night during the summer and then close up during daylight hours. Although this picture was taken during daylight this one bloom was in the shadow of a tree so he thought it was still dark out....pretty cool.

Info kiosk at L&C SP.


We pulled out of Lewis and Clark SP on a rainy Sunday morning headed for the next Missouri River upstream L&C hang. And we found it dear readers! The confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri Rivers.  Where we toured the Fort Union encampment established in 1866 years after L&C cruised thru here. The docent who gave me a personal tour of the Fort was a home boy who grew up in the area but also lived for a few years in his early teens in Carlsbad, CA. After a brief discussion, I don't think he would recognize present day Carlsbad.

Man o man, did I have a great tour of the Ft. Union complex. It was a rainy day and I was the only customer, so me and the docent were muy sympatico! Had a memorable tour of Fort Union!


Off from Ft. Union to Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana, the bullwark of the Sloan-Pick Plan (remember these guys from earlier in the post?). Ft Peck damned up about 150 miles of the Missouri River and it is absolutely mind boggling. This dam was built in the WPA 1930's as a hydraulically filled dam...meaning the dam was an earthen built structure from dredged material. They dredged locally sourced material and filled in a 5 mile wide section of the Missouri River...get right the hell out of town! To pull this off in the 1930's is most impressive. An hydraudically filled dam in this era was unheard of and that these guys pulled it off in the 1930's, the Great Depression, that's what this great country is all about! I loved every moment I spent here. Man, I love America fo' sho! The fine folks that came before us certainly set a high mark for us to attain.

Hydro facility at Ft Peck Dam, that's 1930's American know how and technology for you! More on Ft Peck and the rest of MT in next post.


We have loved the State of North Dakota...a very peaceful place with friendly folks and enjoyable environs. If you make your way up here, make sure you plan on spending some relaxing time in this great State! I would have never guessed that ND was a place to hang and enjoy but was I ever wrong! This place is the real deal, definitely check it out.


But alas dear readers, we have traversed into another State, the Big Sky Country of Montana! And man alive, these skies are big time huge, no lie. I've got some big sky thoughts coming your way about this baby! Stay tuned.


More to come from Big Sky Country, peace out from the Peace Garden State, Debbie and Howard










  

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