So long, Montana...

We were on the road by 8:00 AM, continuing our long trek home. The weather is not picture perfect today and maybe that is good. If we want to get to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota this evening, we have to stay focused. Beautiful weather makes it tempting to stop and stop and stop along the way.
Highway 2 will be our course today. It is a road that runs about 30-40 miles south of the Canadian border and we could actually take it through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Traffic moves slightly slower than the freeways, but you see more and enjoy more on this road. We know that we will continue to see huge farms and ranches along the way. As they did yesterday, the train tracks also parallel this route.
Some of the towns have names that you have heard before. Kremlin, Zurich, Harlem, Glasgow, Dunkirk and Malta. Not sure, but it is possible that some earned their moniker from the places in which the immigrants came. The Glasgow area looked like a links style golf course could easily be built.
Not much photography with the crummy weather, but we did take a couple shots in Dodson. There was an old Cowboy Bar. The sign was weathered, worn and the business has long been closed. Dennis peeked in the window and saw a cowboy hat hanging on a hook. Probably lots of memories in that place. The road, Hwy.2 was called “Montana” in one town. It also follows one of Lewis and Clark’s Trails.
We saw a long line of oversized caravans today, carrying poles and fan blades for a wind turbine farm somewhere in the area. They are unbelievably huge.
We ended our day in a little town called Watford City, North Dakota. The town had a little park called the Watford City Tourist Park. They had two campsites for “overnight” campers and twelve regular campsites. It was an honor system for payment. The little park also had a nine hole disc golf course, a badminton net, horseshoe pits and picnic areas. The town has about 1,700 but in a short while this town will swell. There has been successful oil shale exploration there and workers are moving into the area in droves. The highways are being widened and entrepreneurs are licking their chops to open a business and ride the wave. Dennis spoke with a couple young fellows. They are both moving here on a hope and a prayer. One of the guys plans to open a truck car wash. With all the trucks we have seen in the area and the amount of dirt from all the construction, he will probably do very well.
Tomorrow we visit Teddy Roosevelt’s playground. It has two units, north and south and we will drive through both. We plan to be in Bismarck tomorrow night to photograph, you guessed it, the capitol building.