Day
67 – 7-17-15 Friday We departed Havre Montana at 8AM and headed
to Williston North Dakota for the night. The terrain was much the
same as yesterday except initially there were not any wheat fields,
just open rolling range land with cattle grazing here and there and a
few horses. The Lewis and Clark Trail runs along Highway 2. We
crossed through the Northern end of the Fort Belknap Indian
Community. We began to see wheat fields again and lots and lots of
hay fields. Some people were cutting hay and others were baling the
hay that had been cut and already dried. We met several 18 wheelers
that were transporting it somewhere.
We
understand now why Montana is called “Big Sky Country”. With
their lack of trees and open range you have a view of a broad expanse
of sky. The homes in this area are really spaced out and usually set
way back from the highway. There were a number of small communities
along the highway. We crossed through the Southern end of the
Assiniboine and Sioux Tribal area called Fort Peck. When we got to
Culbertson Montana which was about 45 miles from out destination we
came to a road block and a Montana State Trooper. He told us there
was a train derailment farther up highway 2 and we would have to
detour by taking highway 16 to Sidney Montana or drive down a gravel
road to bypass the derailment. We have driven enough on gravel roads
on this trip so we chose highway 16 to Sidney which was South of our
planned destination of Williston ND.
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| Highway 2 |
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| Highway 2 |
We
have been seeing lots of trains the last two days that were not
moving. Some had hundreds of cargo containers, some were pulling oil
cars and they all were just setting. We wondered why they were not
moving and now I guess we know why. This derailment must have them all
in a holding pattern until the mess can be cleaned up. There is going
to be a lot of late freight deliveries because the trains we saw had
hundreds of cargo containers, many of them JB Hunt.
While
we were headed to Sidney, Lena looked at the map and suggested we
find somewhere to stay in that area rather than driving North to
Sidney and then having to backtrack the next day to head South. The
map indicated the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park
had a campground and was on the route that we had planned for
tomorrow. So we headed there instead of going to Williston. We fueled
up in Sidney at an Esso Station that I believe was the nastiest place
I have ever got fuel. The pavement beside the pumps had diesel fuel
all over it and the pumps looked like they had never been cleaned. We
used the pumps that the truckers use and most fuel stations provide a
long handled scrubber and water the truck driver can use to wash
their windshield. The scrubber at these pumps had a broken handle
about 18” long. Now how is a truck driver going to wash his
windshield with a scrubber this short.
Soon
after leaving Sidney we finally crossed into North Dakota. It has
been a long but pleasant drive across Montana. The landscape changed
almost immediately. Kind of hard to describe so the photos will give
you a better idea. The first highway we got on (#68) was almost as
bad as some in Canada where they have frost heave problems. We began
to see oil rigs again. The kind that look like a giant grasshopper.
When we turned off of highway 68 onto highway 85 we saw several “Man
Camps”. These are clusters of buildings that have been established
to provide housing for the oil field workers. There are not many
towns nearby and no available housing for the large number of oil
field workers, so the oil companies build the “Man Camps” or
“Work Camps” so the workers will have a place to live.
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| Oil Storage Tanks |
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| Pumping Oil |
When
we turned off highway 85 into the park the landscape really looked
strange to us. Again it is hard to describe so the photos will do a
better job than I can. The campground was 6 miles from the entrance
but the road was paved thankfully. We passed a small herd of longhorn
cattle and then came up on a large bull Buffalo on the edge of the
road. The campground host told us to pick any site we wanted that was
empty. We picked site 40 and setup and paid $14 for a two night stay.
With our Senior Pass card we get a 50% discount, plus no entrance fee
to the park which would have been $20. We have a nice shady site but
no hookups. We can go for a few days without hookups so no problem.
This is a nice campground, restrooms, drinking water, paved roads,
paved parking pad, picnic table and grill and large shade trees and
no highway traffic noise. The Little Missouri River flows behind out
site. The water is muddy but the view across the river is nice.
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| Buffalo bull |
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| Campground entrance |
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| Site 40 |
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| Site 40 |
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