Williston, ND

From Jose:

I could not find any suitable campgrounds the right distance away from Glasgow so we decided to do a long day and drive all the way to Williston, ND, a good sized town.

Along the way I noticed a chip on the RV windshield and decided to stop and call my insurance company to take care of it ASAP. I was referred to a glass company that has shops all over the US and the nearest one to me is in Minot, ND. That works out great because I planned to be there in a few days anyway. So I made an appointment for next week.

Williston is a boomtown, having found oil in the badlands area south of town, near Theodore Roosevelt National Park. My campgrounds-finding app found 3 campgrounds in Williston, one clearly said it was temporary housing for workers. We went to the second one.  Even before actually driving into the park Diane said she did not like it so we went to the third park. The third one was bad on steroids. Junk all over the place, small children running around unsupervised, grass had not been cut in awhile, tough-looking neighbors. So we decided the second place was not so bad after all and headed back there. I tried to call ahead but got a "phone has been disconnected" recording. Hmmmm. When we got there and entered the park we noticed a sign announcing the upcoming housing units to be constructed there soon. Hmmmm. There were plenty of RVs so we decided to investigate further. We could not find an office or any kind of information board. Hmmmm. Come to think of it, there was not even a sign with the name of the park, just a bunch of RVs where the GPS said the park should be. My guess is that the place has been sold to build housing units and the current occupants have so many days to get out. So we decided on plan B, good old Walmart. Fortunately there was one in this town. It was not the best Walmart parking lot we've stayed in but I was grateful.

The next day we took a quick spin through downtown Williston and then headed south towards Theodore Roosevelt National Park and through the thick of the oil business.

Looks like Williston was a cute little town before the discovery of oil, and the downtown is still nice. But everywhere else all you see are huge trucks or pickups carrying parts for the machinery,hand painted "drivers wanted" signs and manufactured housing for the onslaught of workers flooding into town. There are many more RV parks than my app told me, all full of worker RVs. Not the fancy Class A rigs we have seen in KOAs but ratty trailers pulled by ratty pickups. Not that I have anything against workers but this is definitely not the place to bring a family on vacation.

We entered Theodore Roosevelt National Park (huge thanks to my awesome brother Cris for the National Parks Pass. It has been put to good use). It is an oasis of quiet and natural beauty.