We've traveled on US 2 West almost the entire way through Wisconsin, Minnesota and now North Dakota and will take it all the way into Kalispell, MT. Not much to do in the way of navigation so that part has been easy.
Last night we stayed in Turtle River State Park just west of Grand Forks, ND. It was totally different from the surrounding countryside with a riparian area on either side of the river (looked more like a creek) and large cottonwoods. This morning Jim spoke with a man who was collecting moths off the side of the shower building. He is a biologist working on a 3 year project to see how many species of moths are in the park. To date they've collected 700 species and they believe there are possibly twice that many. Moths? Really? Apparently they are measuring the impact the increase or decrease in number of species has on the local bird population. The moths are captured, photographed and released. Pretty interesting stuff really. It is a gorgeous park but beware, we were swarmed by mosquitoes. The second we got out of the truck we were covered, it made going for a hike an impossibility. It was worse than when we were in Alaska in the summer.
Generally this part of the state is primarily farm land and we mean BIG farms - corn and soy beans as far as the eye can see. It was beautiful in its richness and abundance. There were also many small ponds and lakes with lots of birds, and cows, and windmills.
We also stopped at the geographical middle of North America just to say we did it.
As we approached Williston it turned to oil country with rigs and derricks pumping, big trucks carrying field supplies and RV's and "man camps". There wasn't a single truck doing less than 75 mph and these were semis. Scary. There are natural gas flares burning all over and with the lack of trees it looks a bit otherworldly and very industrial. We are camped on the shores of the Missouri River on the Lewis and Clark Trail and now that we have some OFF, we may take a walk and explore a bit.