North Dakota towns

Entering N. Dakota is not much different than leaving eastern Montana.  It's still open sky, the land simply rolling interminably with slight variation, but it is very important to our nation's agriculture.  You may know that Williston has become an oil boomtown so there are oil pumps and flames burning everywhere.

Dinosaur eggs?

The only solace is making a trip to The Badlands to lose oneself in the pristine area of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  We can only hope that once the oil runs dry and all the transient workers have moved on, the town will work just as hard to revive itself from the pillaging.

TR National Park

During the next few days we continued our somewhat monotonous drive through some non-descript towns.  Suffice it to say, I was bored out of my gourd and thought that re-watching the movie Fargo might liven things up.  It was essential to prepare for Jose for potential quirky encounters upon our eventual arrival.  I had forgotten how shockingly violent some of the scenes are and wondered if Jose was cringing, but the sheriff is so hilarious that I discovered he had enjoyed the dark humor.

Buffalo greetings at TR Nat'l Park

Spending a day in Rugby whose claim to fame is being the geographical center of N. America only adds more fuel to the fire.  there seems to be a lot of controversy about the validity of the claim, but they quickly erected a monument years ago to refute another smaller town's claim and so it sticks to this day. So there ya have it folks!  The only actual claim I can attest to and offer my legs and arms as proof is that there are tons of mosquitoes and gnats here! Bzzzzz!