August 17, 20143 Sticker Price (Walmart Parking Lot, Bismarck, North Dakota)

It has been a shock, sticker shock, to pay for a meal and it be less than $25-40 (lol).  Taco Bell was less than $12 tonight.  Taco Bell was in walking distance of the motor home and it was about to rain.  

Eating out in Canada and Alaska is sticker shock the other way!  I guess just because most food is either shipped in or flown in Alaska thinks high prices are okay!  

Today we drove south from Williston to I-94, then west to Bismarck.

We did a driving tour through Roosevelt National Park.  The national park is also known as "North Dakota's Badlands."  A ranger told us the "badlands" run north all the way to Saskatchewan.  

The Badlands in South Dakota is more colorful.  The Badlands in Roosevelt NP are still very impressive geology.  If a traveler is traveling to the northwest I would recommend going north through Roosevelt National Park, then west on Highway 2 through Montana.

 North Dakota's Badlands

A herd of Plains' Bison 

 More of the Badlands with a lone bison.

 An oxbow in the Little Missouri River in the national park.

The Badlands.

 A field of sunflowers!

Salem Sue, world's largest Holstein cow, New Salem, North Dakota

The drive from the Williston to near Bismarck has been taken over by the newest "fracking" exploration.  Two miles below the surface of western North Dakota -  a formation called the Bakken,  is rich with oil reserves.  Until recently the oil was not extractable.  A new and controversial technique - hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" ha allowed oil companies to more than quadruple their daily oil production in the last five years. 

"The land areas of three national parks in ND combined makes up less than 1% of the area known as the Bakken Oil Field.  These tiny islands of natural landscape are being surrounded by development.  New wells are going in every month; many can be seen from inside the park boundaries.  Each new well means another drill rig, well pad, pumpjack, debris pit, flare pit, storage tanks, and access road on the landscape.  Each new well requires 2000 "trucking events" to complete its setup and to begin pumping oil.  Noise and dust from heavy truck traffic and pumping equipment is constant.  Numerous flares can be seen in the formerly dark night sky as excess natural gas burned off.  The oil boom begs a difficult question:  how can we develop our resources while still protecting our parks and wildlife?!  (Visitor Guide, National Park Sites of North Dakota, page 16)   

Glen and I had much discussion about the area and the difficult question mentioned in the quote. Obviously we are a supporter of national parks and the many acres protected by the government.  But, what about "progress"?