Big Country

 We spent the day driving through the middle of Montana into Idaho. The terrain of the northern plains is spectacular in its bigness. This type of scenery is difficult to capture with a camera. It is difficult to record the scope and depth you see. I tried creating a panorama with my iPhone and I think this approach works pretty well. Click on the image if you are using a computer to view a larger image.

Here is an image that may take some explaining. It looks like an overpass, but what about the grass. You might guess if you look at the road side and notice that there are abnormally high fences on both sides of the highway. This is an animal bridge. Now you know how the elk cross the road. I wish we had something to protect me from the deer when I drive in northern Wisconsin.

One more photo. This one from the western edge of the state.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

 We had time to drive through Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Driving was pretty much what we could handle as the temp was over 100 at mid afternoon when we arrived. The images that follow are from the North Unit of the park. We have spent time in both sections of the park during previous visits. The North Unit has an easy drive with great scenery (see photos and videos that follow). The South Unit is were you would camp. It was so hot we thought we might not see any animals. No Big Horn sheep, but we did see buffalo.

Hopefully, I can convince you that North Dakota has some great scenery if you are willing to travel to the western side of the state.

Canola. Prairie Potholes, and Big Oil

A few observations while driving across northern North Dakota. 

The following images shows a canola field behind a prairie pothole. Canola is a crop that gained popularity while we lived in North Dakota. As far as I know, canola is used as an oil seed for producing cooking oil. The yellow color makes this crop easy to differentiate from all of the large fields of green you see while driving through the prairie states.

North Dakota contains many prairie potholes. These small water holes form in small depressions and fill with water in the Spring from snow melt. The pothole may or may not dry up in summer depending on how dry the summer has been. Prairie potholes are an important feature of this area of the country as they provide an essential habitat for ducks. Ducks nest in the the water edges offering protection for this type of bird. Ducks migrate to and from this area of the country depending on the time of year to have access to this type of habitat.

Western North Dakota has always had a few oil wells, but has become one of the largest areas for oil extraction with the development of fracking technologies. Fracking is a controversial technology that involves injecting sand and water into well holes under high pressure. The mixture fractures the shale containing oil releasing the oil so that it can be extracted. ND and Canada have oil reserves that can be accessed using this technique. The process is more expensive that other techniques, but represents a supply of oil when the price is right. North Dakota has experienced boom and bust cycles because of changes in the price of oil and my experience at the University within the state varied as a function of whether taxes from oil extraction resulted in paltry or plentiful revenue. The political climate in North Dakota focused on oil taxes as a way to offset taxes to individuals creating swings in revenue available for various functions of tax revenue. 

Fufeng Bonus

I took this picture this morning. It likely initially seems a very generic photo and hardly worth a blog post until you understand that nearly the identical photo appeared on the front page of today's New York Times. I normally generate one post per day, but consider this a bonus.

We happened to be in Grand Forks catching up with old friends and we got into our typical discussion of university, state, and national politics. This is what academics do. Among the topics was the controversy of the proposed Fufeng corn processing plant. I read the GF paper and had heard about the plant and our friends filled us in on the issue. After we left and returned to our motel one from our group of friends sent a text with a screen capture of the front page of the New York Times featuring the Fufeng issue. I had to take the same photo before we left town and that is what appears here. Grand Forks rarely hits the front page of The NY Times, but I think the issue of the U.S. being afraid China should they take military action against Taiwan has increased attention to issues associated with China. 

We subscribe to the digital version of the Times, so here is my short summary. Fufeng is a Chinese company that wants to build a corn processing plant in Grand Forks. The corn mill will supposedly create 1000 construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs. Local politicians thought this sounded like a great way to boost the local economy. When the City Council met to consider road design and utility contracts they encountered irate citizen opposition complaining of encouraging communism and the danger of espionage associated with a near by Air Force Base. Some citizens began posting yard signs showing a hammer and sickle. The Governor of North Dakota had endorsed the project as a great opportunity, but now the debate related to the issue has now involved national politicians.

You can’t go home

Our first stop on this road trip was Grand Fork, ND. We lived in Grand Forks for 37 years which is the longest time we have lived anywhere. We have not been back in a while mostly because of COVID,, but we were passing through on our way to Oregon. We both retired while working at the University of North Dakota. We had the opportunity to spend some time visiting with some of our friends from the Department of Psychology and spouses. It was great to have the chance to see these folks again.

The title for this post concerns the destruction of the building in which I spent 35 years of my career. This is an image of Corwin-Larimore which I took several years ago. Psych always seems to end up in some older building that was originally purposed in some other way. Corwin-Larimore as the name implies is actually a building that is a combination of a couple of buildings. One building was originally part of a different institution. It had been a dorm and when we moved had been a dormitory. Our individual offices were repurposed dorm rooms. 

Here is the new version of the same photo. The university has drastically upgraded the campus which is no very impressive with multiple new buildings. Rather than a collection of buildings from different generations, the buildings all now match and many are linked (a great thing for the winters of North Dakota).