Never feel sorry for Anna! Jousting with her is equivalent to one using a bent tent peg going up against a whirling dervish with a razor-....

It is Friday, September 2, 8:10 a.m. MST, and we are rolling southwest out of Williston, North Dakota headed for Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming where we have an RV reservation for the night.

Williston is all I expected it to be and more! It is a boomtown alright, driven by the fracking (a neologism derived from “fracture” – the stone thousands of feet underground is literally fractured with a combination of water pressure and explosives) of deep underground “aquifers” or “crudifers” that allows for the collection of crude oil as it trickles to a central underground pool. It is then pumped to the service and either piped off, or trucked off to refineries.

At one point I was attempting to keep track of the active pumping wells, and of the derricks that are drilling new wells, but lost count. It made me wonder what Texas must have looked like when crude oil was first discovered.

They call it a “man town” and deservedly so, similar in some ways, I presume, to the gold-rush days of Frisco in ’49. It doesn’t take long to understand why. Anna was never more relieved leaving town this morning, and said that is one town she’s never going back to. Noticing that she was a little on edge about being a woman in a “gold rush” town, I goaded her on by suggesting we just park our truck on a side street like everyone else does and save on RV park fees. She would hear nothing of it! She had out the Woodall’s Directory in a New York minute, had us connected with an “established” RV park just west of town, and would entertain no more suggestions of just “winging it in Williston”. She might be fun to jest with, but when this woman makes a decision, Thomas and I know it is “game over” and we become like compliant sheep until the next dispute. Don’t waste your time trying to convince me that women are of the “weaker sex”. Never feel sorry for Anna! Jousting with her is equivalent to one using a bent tent peg going up against a whirling dervish with a razor-sharp splitting maul.

We had our dinner last night at J-Dubs. The place was hoping. Only pick-up trucks in the parking lot. Thomas and I were about the only two without baseball caps. Anna thought the place would have roving “working girls” and was somewhat chagrined that she didn’t spot any. Given it was 6:30 in the evening, I suggested to her that perhaps it was a little early for that kind of action.

We noticed at a very busy fuel stop that the restrooms are androgynous. We inferred from that that if they had dedicated restrooms for women, they would be idle most of the time whereas the men’s room would always have a long line – quite the opposite of what one finds elsewhere.

I have never seen such a collection of industrial equipment in one 80-mile radius in my life! Eighteen-wheelers are more ubiquitous than any four-wheeler. Many of them are frack trucks hauling water to the oil wells. Others are oil trucks hauling the crude oil off to the refineries. The entire economy of the town appears to be driven by crude oil.

(Parenthetically speaking, my Proverbs 31 mate of 39 years has very strong opinions on fracking. Our farm, which our children now own, has been in the family for eight generations. We constantly receive these gratuitous requests from the oil industry [probably Halliburton] requesting licensing rights to frack on our farm. LeAnna’s response? “Not in our lifetime!” We understand there was an oil executive recently who, in an attempt to portray the safety of fracking, drank a cup of the solution at a publicized news release. One of my Facebook friends regretted that he didn’t drink truck full.)

Signs wanted for truck drivers and waitresses are everywhere.

The boom has exceeded the ability of the hospitality industry to keep up. No large chain motels that we saw. Entrepreneurial landowners turn tracks of land into overnight RV parks, probably without any facilities. It appears that the rough-necks working on the rigs, truck drivers, and dozer operators choose to purchase whatever piece of RV equipment they can get their hands on and set up camp. We presumed that a tertiary industry of providing water and hauling out septic waste keeps them sustainable. Speaking of the “trickle down” effect, everyone seems to be picking up his or her share of the pie, but like all gold-rush towns, it is the folks supplying the services that will walk off with the pickins’.

On the way into Williston, Thomas had a bicycle route GPSed out that started 32 miles east of town. I was somewhat hesitant about his biking into town with 18 wheelers buzzing around him like angry hornets, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I got some great raw footage on the video cam of his “taking care of business every day” beside the truck but that will have to say in the family archives. He took the “spot GPS” unit with him so we could track his progress, and potentially go back and haul him out of a ditch should he have been run off the road, but everything worked out fine. He had it up to 43 MPH going down one of the hills. While waiting for him, Anna and I scoped out a shower for him at a rec center. Their fees were normally $3.00 but when they saw him walking in with his spandex shorts and skinny, hairy, sweaty legs they took sympathy on him and waived the fees.

Anna spotted a barbed wire fence a half mile long as we meandered into Williston from the east. On nearly every post, spaced about twenty feet apart, someone had jammed a cowboy boot or even an old figure skating shoe. We stopped and she got a number of great pictures, which well post on the blog sometime shortly.

Breakfast this morning was eggs, bread, and coffee. I was the cook. Meanwhile Thomas broke down camp. This consists of using our battery powered drill to reverse the jacks that stabilize the camper, roll up the electric lines and stowing them, and putting the folding lawn chairs back up on the roof and ratcheting them down tightly.

It is day four on the road. We have averaged 55 MPH since we left home. Thomas spoke with folks that were set up beside us last night that have been on the road since May and on their way back from Alaska. They were averaging 34 MPH, but then again, they were driving a Ford, not a Dodge with a 5.9 diesel Cummings engine. We had our mileage up to 15.4 miles per gallon, but yesterday we were driving into such strong headwinds that we temporarily dropped down to 11.1 miles per gallon. We’re doing well again today. It seems that Anna can “hyper mile” better than either Thomas or I, but I’m not sure why.

Adrenalin is no longer spiking; we are starting to flat-line somewhat except for when Anna attempts to pass an 18-wheeler. Everything else she does gracefully.

We are adapting to the culture of “life on the road”. We’re become more like “pilgrims on this earth” every day. Our home is “not of this world”. We are becoming like the champions of Hebrews 11 in our meanderings and living on faith, but speaking of myself, not worthy to be included in that pantheon of saints just yet.