BAKKAN OIL FIELDS GO BOOM

Wanted to see the Bacon..no the Backen.. no the BAKKEN oil field in the Williston Basin of North Dakota where a lot of fracking and pumping are going on.  

This is the only picture I found that showed the wells -
each dot is a well (but maybe even more than one well at that location)

What a massive undertaking.  Most traffic on the roads are semi trucks.  
Some tankers coming from the pumps with signs:

Crude Petroleum Oil

Others with rock to assist in creating a new pump area.  

And more with Sandboxes carrying a special sand mixture used in fracking.  

We passed several wide-load parades with tanks, pumps, electricians, and at least one truck carrying the orange windsock flown at each pumpsite. 

Each tiny little existing townsite has multi-story apartments springing up to house the workers.  Workers that put in pumps and pipes, haul the oil, wire the pump,  pump the crude oil and haul to a storage tank complex where it finally gets hauled away and pumped into our cars.

Most of the traveling is on dirt roads.  

They all end up on the paved road throwing mud and rocks.  

We got bashed with a melon size crunch in our windshield 

by one of the thrown rocks.  

TED ROOSEVELT'S PARK – Badlands, Bison, and Prairie Dogs

Finally got to see the badlands of north Dakota in Theodore Roosevelt National Park– not as spectacular of color as those in SD but nice.  

Saw wild horses, wild buffalo, and wild prairie dogs.  Bison and horses were brought into the park so are they really wild.  Their ancestors were brought into the area to help build a herd.  A National Park zoo.  Traffic backed up at the sight of any animal. 

momma bisons and bison babies - looks like they spend a lot of time there

"wild" horses

Prairie Dogs were the most fun

Will have to save the town of Medora, and the north section of this national park for another time.  Put just in case you get there before us....

SCANDINAVIAN HERITAGE CENTER MINOT

Seeing this church on the way into Minot put it on the must see before we left town.  

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This park was set up for and by the local clubs with Scandinavians heritage (Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden).

Beautiful walk-around park.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON -
I was told that his stories were always dark and didn't end nice.  Really?

LEIF EIRICKSSON - Icelandic Explorer 

SIGDAL HOUSE: 

An original 1770 built home brought over from Norway and rebuilt.  

Came with short ceilings (folks were shorter) and an ogre in residence. 

Rosemaling on cabinet doors from about that same time

STABBUR – storehouse

DALA HORSE – a Swedish symbol

GOL STAVE CHURCH

Full size and true to detail church from the town of Gol, Norway.  

A Christian church from around the year 1200.

Interior

Carved around the doorways

You've been told!

NORTH DAKOTA RV RALLIES

After the Oshkosh Airplanes, we signed up for 2 motorhome rallies in North Dakota.
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One was in Garrison at a park on Lake Sakakawea (on the Missouri river).  This rally was put on by owners of Alpine Coach RVs and invited us along as friends even though we were also SOBs (Some Other Brand).
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Beautiful setting, lots of activities including learning more about Lewis and Clark (on the Missouri River), the Fort previously in this location, and the town of Garrison which is the self-proclaimed Walleye Capital of the world.

Garrison, the Walleye Capital of the World

Many meals were catered.  And a special touch at Alpine Coach rallies were gifts at every meal: 2 rolls of RV TP (they'd have to explain that to you), and North Dakota delights: Dot's Pretzels, local BBQ sauce, and frosted Oreos.  What a fun group.

Onward to the 100^th Family Motorcoach Association Rally – we've probably been to 15+ of their rallies in the past.  

Rally Stickers: Who doesn't collect stickers....not mine,  but I see duplicates!

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We were at the rally in Gillette, Wyoming in 2013 to help celebrate 50 years

Here the rain messed with the parking of attendees.  Lucky us---by the time we arrived we were put in a line with 6 other RVs and taken to an area where the VIPs park and filled in that area.  We were so close to all the activities and parked on pavement.  
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Lots of vendors and seminars.  Dean and I had to really arrange our schedules to see it all.  There was nighttime entertainment, an ice cream social, ladies luncheon, and racing pigs!  We had enough to keep us busy!!

Get along, little piggies

ALL YOU NEVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SPAM

Only one piece of spam were we allowed to try,

 but as a consequence we bought 12 different flavors. 

Hopefully, I’ll love like spam when they are gone.  

Have yet to use it for anything but breakfast.  Maybe casserole?  Fried?  

Not dessert, for goodness sake.  

Love their nice visitor center and the history of the company.  Maybe folks already know this but Hawaii has the biggest consumption of all states.  

I was impressed with the product Spammy.   2.5 million cans are donated annually to the children of Guatemala.  The product contains protein and other nutrients to helpd the children who struggle to get the right kind and quantity of nutrients. 

Sights we enjoy

Because we are often traveling back roads we see many interesting sights.  The pictures below were from two sites in Wisconsin.  We had no name for the first company but the second batch which includes the flamingo is Schetl in Oshkosh that we had found before when in this town.

Company 1.  Many forms on hand for fiberglass modeling.  Many of these items were probably part of an advertising gimmick.

Frog - ha

Think these might be entry slides into a pool

Maybe for a parade float?

Hundreds of molds for fiberglassing

I recognize this - a pheasant

 Company 2 - has oddities - these we were sure were used as part of advertising

early snowmobile

Cute as can be but I'm sure it won't fit the car

Tall tall flamingo

Reindeer band

We go NUTS for public campgrounds

Public campgrounds have the wherewithal to make campsites more spacious as they aren't taxed by the square footmore space per campsite.  

What a delight it has been using the website Campendium.com to make us aware of ALL THE COUNTY AND CITY PARKS there are in these areas we travel.  

Mankato Land of Memories CityPark, Minnesota, acres of hookups but only two RVs in the park

Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, AmFam camp open to the public.
Dean thought he'd beat me with this odd pool shot.

Winona City Park, Minnesota - our campsite along a Mississippi River slough

Brigham County Park, Wisconsin

turkeys and little turks at Grand Casino Bay campground, South Dakota

Some towns have 400 people or less and still have a city park with a small campground.  In towns like these we want to spend some money and in towns this small it's almost as if we could spend money only for tractor repair.  They have all been secure.  Towns this small seem to keep the bad guys moving along.  

These campgrounds have for the most part been empty when we stayed.  An "Honest John" box and a small sign at the park seem to be the only notice that it was a campground.

Unfortunately state and national parks are using reservations systems.  These work out very well for people with a well planned itinerary .... that ain't us.  It also galls us to pay an additional $8 to $10 reservation fee for one night's camping.  

As we traveled east to Oshkosh, we stayed on US Highways.  Mostly US12.  We bypassed Minneapolis/St.Paul.  And had to detour around various roads that were washed out or flooded.  Always makes it interesting!