Riding Through North Dakota - From Havre,MT to Harvey,ND

Thanks to wonderful American bedding equipment (not) with ultra thin bed sheets I had the worst possible sleep last night. And since there was only one bed in the room this damn bed sheet was under constant tug & war all night, which did not contribute to a better sleep. I just cannot understand how an entire continent’s population can sleep under such circumstances. And finally I hear Molly begging for a walk outside. At 5:30am as I must add! Well, out we went and it was snowing. Not good! We leave Havre,Montana at 7:30am and are rolling into a long stretch of endlessly rolling prairie. Small dinky towns with nobody outside and traffic is non-existing. Finally, as we near the eastern border of the state oil machinery appears on the road and in the wide open spaces along the highway.   The presence of oil becomes more and more obvious as we run into North Dakota. Oil tanks and oil pumps are everywhere. A totally new economy is about to run old-time farmers and ranchers out of town. Everyone who hasn’t got a job in the new industry is loosing out. Farmer couple on their way home Prices are going through the roof and so are taxes. Instead, we see single young men in fancy trucks, some of them pulling huge 5th-wheels. New buildings everywhere. Sure, small little North Dakota towns are having their renaissance with lots of money flowing around. It is all a repeat of the 1849 California boom towns when the call of GOLD  and SILVER resounded through the country and attracted all kind of dealers and wheelers and shady characters to town. But of course, it is the Nation’s hope to be self sufficient with the ever-increasing demand of energy.                                                     old and new economy As soon as we have passed the North Dakota city of Williston the sun peeks out and we get a clear blue sky for the rest of the day. We find a pretty nice new hotel in the town of Harvey,ND. It is so new that it doesn’t even show up on our GPS. This time we make sure we have 2 beds in the room. Of course the dreadful bedding stuff is there again. Oh well….