North Dakota

So after 4.5 hours of sleep and 10 hours of driving, I have officially made it to Williston, North Dakota!  I've never driven for so long, and doing it (basically) straight on so little sleep was a very interesting experience.  Luckily I didn't have many "sleepy" periods, and I had my parents and teh Chad to talk to me when things got boring.  I will say, I got pretty sore after 6 hours or so.  And driving with no one to keep you company kind of stinks.  I circled the town I'm in on the above map; as you can see it's nearly in Montana.  I rode on Intersate 94 for over 500 miles, and then turned on a road called 85 and rode that for another 100+ miles.  I will say, I'm happy to finally be done with it!

Anyway, now I'm going to go on a search for work!  There are a lot of places hiring so hopefully I'll get a good job somewhere and make some cash over the summer for school.  It'll be nice to spend time with my dad too; truth be told I care more about that then work anyway.

I took lots of pictures as I came up here, starting once I crossed into North Dakota.  Here is the sign that shows you are entering the state, followed by the bridge arch that comes right after the sign:

North Dakota, on a whole, was extremely boring.  It was nice and green, and there was cities and stuff, but it was so incrediblly flat!  The wind came whipping around like you wouldn't believe; huge Semi-trucks would be swishing all over the road and my little car was being pushed every which way.  After a while I got used to the resistance and didn't notice so much anymore, but at 80mph when a big gust slaps your car on the side it can be a little freaky.  Furthermore, I realized about 100 miles into the drive that I only had one squirt of windshield fluid left in my car, and so as I went the piles of dead bugs on the windshield got more and more distracting.  (That is what those little smudges in the pictures are; bug guts.)

So, as you can see, the drive was pretty much just a pile of flatness.  But then, suddenly, maybe about 7 hours in, I look to my side and what do I see?  A hill!  A glorious, non-flat, half-grassy half-dirt hill!  After miles and miles of endless nothing, I pretty much pooped myself in happiness.  (If you look closely, you can see the hill in the picture below):

After this things got a little more hilly; I finally turned off 94 and was making my way down 85.  Things were about the same as always, flat with a little hill here and there.  I came around a sharp corner, completely zoned out, and what I saw pretty much made me crap my pants.

Hills, everywhere!  Where did they come from?  More importantly, where were they for the earlier part of the trip!?  For about a half hour I was surrounded by the huge striped badland hills of North Dakota; you can't see it very well in my pictures but they stretched high up into the sky and low down below the road.  I've never seen anything quite like it and it made the rest of the trip worth it, to be honest.

Finally, after 10 hours on the road I pulled in to the trailer park where I will be staying.  My dad fixed up an old trailer for us to stay in and split it into two sections, one for me to sleep in and one for him to sleep in (because we most likely will have different schedules.)  My computer is set up on a wood table he built, my bed is a nice futon and all in all it's a pretty nice place.  We did find some old pot and meth stuff though... kind of wierd really.

So, that is about it!  I will be updating this blog as more things happen out here, and of course will keep updating with art and such.  For now, I'm off to relax.  Just sitting in one spot for 10 hours is more tiring then you'd think.