You gotta love mud.

"If you're gonna be in Dickinson, ND, you gotta love mud."

I chuckled as I overheard this comment on the plane flying into Dickinson last week.  Then, the guy across the aisle added, "And, once the mud dries up, well, you gotta love dust."

And, he's right.  Mud.  Dust.  Wind.  And, all of that was before the Bakken oil and gas boom.    
This is dry, arid country in Western North Dakota.  I read that the average precipitation in the U.S. is 38.67 inches a year.  In Dickinson it's 15.75 inches.  Where I live in Colorado it is slightly more at 16.90 inches and where I grew up, Laramie, Wyoming, it's a precious 11.45 inches.  (You can see why I LOVE rainy days!)

View north from Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport to Dickinson, about a 5-10 minute drive.

My husband serves on a board of directors for a company headquartered in Dickinson, so we've been coming to this part of North Dakota since the early 1990s.  At that time, this was a quiet Western town, just a stone's throw from the Badlands, gateway to the Great American West, less than 30 minutes to the beautiful tiny community of Medora and entrance to the even more stunning Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  

It was a quiet community, founded in 1881 with a heritage of  German, Norwegian, Czech, Russian, Irish and English folks. It was a city with some manufacturing, businesses, schools, churches, farms and ranches.  It was nicknamed the "Queen City of the Prairies" because of its strategic location between Fargo, ND and Billings, MT.  

A new nickname, "The Bakken Oil Boomtown," began to gather momentum around 2004 as Dickinson and Williston, to the north, have become two of the fastest-growing areas in the U.S.  Primarily because of these two communities North Dakota is at a record high 723,393 (in 2013)--an increase of more than 50,000 since the 2010 headcount and way over the 2012 estimate.  Today, North Dakota has the nation's fastest growth rate at 3.14 percent.     

After an 80 year decline in population, North Dakota is now experiencing rapid population growth, primarily led by an influx of workers into North Dakota's Oil Patch. Workers come from all over the U.S. and the world.  It's such a population boom that the U.S. Census Bureau is figuring out new ways to get out into the oil field to count people and to come up with ways not to double-count people who might still claim residency in another place.  

The Bakken oil boom has changed Dickinson into a mighty force, a city worthy of its own airport with flights coming in and departing daily from Minneapolis and Denver, a city that has scrambled to quickly adapt, build new motels, businesses, housing.  And, as you might guess, it has seen rapid changes in workforce diversity, crime and drug and alcohol abuse.  

Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport

Rental car lot and airport parking under expansion.

The tarmac at Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport

Check-in at United two hours prior to my flight. I love not waiting in line!

Before moving to Colorado I lived for many years in Ohio, at the height of its employment crisis.  It seemed as if no one was hiring anyone for anything.  But, with each trip to Dickinson during that time, I felt like I had stepped into the Twilight Zone.  For EVERY place I went there were signs begging for workers, worked needed immediately, workers receiving GREAT PAY for all types of jobs--professional, manufacturing, service, EVERYTHING!  

Businesses that had retained a steady work force with little or no turn over were suddenly finding their workers leaving to take any job in the oil field.  Hard work but higher wages.

Airport parking lot.

Suddenly this quiet Western town has transformed into a Truck City, where it feels like one is driving a toy vehicle if it's not a 4-wheel-drive-three-quarter-ton-pickup-truck! It appears to me that working on the oil field requires a truck.

Can you see our white rental car in the motel parking lot?

 

The color of Western North Dakota mud.

And, that brings me back to the "gotta love mud" advice.  Regardless of season, if there's even a tiny bit of moisture in rain, sleet or snow there's MUD.  There's mud in the motel lobbies, throughout Wal Mart, in the parking lots, in empty lots, in the hallways and on the stairs.  

Big tires and work boots bring it in from the oil fields and there it dries until it breaks apart, returning to the wind to blow as dust until the next encounter with moisture where it reconstitutes itself back into MUD.

 

Tools of the trade.

Back from the oil fields.

So, yes, you "gotta love mud," but I also love the sheer gumption of a community determined with a Rough Rider Pride to retain its cohesiveness and identity as more than a boom town and more than rapid population growth.  

This is a community where older folks still gather at McDonald's for coffee and talk early in the mornings, where Dickinson State University continues to educate and where a new state-of-the-art hospital is being built in a new section of town.  Dickinson has been dealing with mud and dust for a long, long time.  It will continue to find its way through the Bakken, changed and adapted, but still North Dakotan.    

  

On my way...

I simply love to travel.

I LOVE to go a-journeying, packing my bag, releasing my anticipation for the unknown and embracing the road...even when the road is a plane and I'm headed to North Dakota.

I know, a lot of people might not have bubbling enthusiasm for a trip to North Dakota but not me.  I love this state.  It's a crazy mixture of urban sophistication (in the North Dakota sense) on the Minnesota side and wild enticement of the Badlands on the Montana side.  Above, hello Canada and below, well, it's kind of hard to determine sometimes when North Dakota ends and South Dakota begins.

We used to live in this state a few years ago and had the opportunity to explore all its corners and roads less traveled.  We met people in the big cities (remember, this is North Dakota) and in the small local cafes.  We've seen the wild horses and bison in Theodore Roosevelt National Park (a jewel if you haven't visited this one yet) and moose on a drive to Fargo.  It's a place where the solace of open spaces rule and it's a really good idea to invest in a down coat and serious Sorel boots.  And, remember to always keep your winter survival pack in the car.

This is technically a business trip this time.  Business for my husband, pleasure for me.  My husband is a board member for a local company and we've been attending these quarterly board meetings since the mid-90s.  We used to fly into Bismarck and drive 90 minutes west.  Now we can fly directly into Dickinson.

Somewhere between Bismarck and Dickinson, North Dakota

Although I appreciate the efficiency of arriving in one's destination, I confess that I miss that beautiful drive where seeing more than five other cars is practically an observation to mention.  It is remarkable how attractive "empty" is to me.  Those rolling plains, big skies and unending vistas can take some visitors by surprise, filling them with apprehension of feeling so small and insignificant.  But, if one can stop hyperventilating and BREATHE, taking in all the energy of a space so undefined, it is a remarkable connection that can be made.

I just looked at my watch--gotta go!

The Badlands

      

A wild horse in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Deer in the Badlands

Bison run freely in Theodore Roosevelt National Park