The Bakken Oil Boom (Chaos)

Finally, first real exploring flight!  An hour and a half out of Watford City.  Aircraft felt really good! Throttled back to 5600 rpm, gives 50+ mph in perfectly balanced straight and level flight.  Quiet and smooth and peaceful at that power setting, and completely stable, just right for observing and photography.  I think I'm going to like this aircraft for this purpose.....  

Observing all the drilling rigs and production pads, some with gas flames, scattered around.  Temporary accommodation everywhere, fifth wheelers and travel trailers in every available space, and whole communities of transportable units (called 'dongas' in Australian mining camps)....  Lots of new apartment buildings going up.  Big sheds serving the oil industry, drilling equipment suppliers and trucking yards.  Most of the oil still goes out by truck, so that's a LOT of tanker truck traffic.  Main highway 85 goes right through town, so long lines of trucks working their way through....  Crude oil going out and lots of diesel coming in to fuel all the big trucks and pickups...  Watford was just a really small town, but now overwhelmed by all the new activity....  Services can't keep up, so a bit rough on the edges yet, lots of dust....  An exciting 'boom' town feeling!  Thousands of young single men prowling around, so lock up your daughters, but they could do worse than tie up with a man who's got the stamina and ambition to put on boots and put up with these rough conditions in order to get together a stake.....  These are 'can do' men, no loffers here....

All those jackpumps pulling long strokes at full speed, so lots of oil coming out of the ground.

Rigs drilling more holes everywhere.

Most of that oil is hauled out by truck.

Hundreds, nay thousands of those trucks everywhere.

All that heavy truck traffic in the summer heat has left these grooves in the highway....

Evidence of a new pipeline across a field, to eventually carry most of the oil out to market.

A large 'man camp' next to a small town.

Completely changes the character of that once quiet little town.

Lock up your daughters.....

Not a place I could live in.....

 There are fifth-wheelers and house trailers everywhere....

Anything goes.....

Laundromats are always a big business in such camps.

A lot of hard-working machines in there.....

Everyone drives those trucks.

Changed times......
Was probably a one-room country schoolhouse.
Looks a lot like my first school, but this one more ornate....

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