Road Trip across North Dakota 8/24/2010

What will you see while driving through North Dakota on Hwy. 2

Big oil drills

And small oil drills

Hay fields,

and hay fields and bails in road side ditches. (Which I think is a great idea)

Bugs splattering on your wind shield.

Golden fields,

and prairie potholes,

and more prairie potholes.

Blue skies and white clouds.

Still more prairie potholes.

Open spaces with few trees.

And more prairie potholes!

A few places with a few more trees, but not many!

Sunflower fields.

Some rolling hills,

and the first corn fields to be seen, while driving east.

After many little towns, we entered into Rugby, North Dakota. We stopped to get gas. When I stepped out of the Nest, the wind was so strong, it about blew me away. I have never experience such strong wind. I mentioned the wind to the gas attendant. He replied, "Try being here in the winter!"

Rugby, ND is famous for, do you know?

After our short stand in the geographic center of North America, we continued on. Everywhere are prairie potholes! At the time, I did not know what they were called.

What exactly are prairie potholes? After research, this is what I found out. The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is an area of the northern Great Plains and mid grass and tall grass prairies that contains thousands of shallow wetlands known as potholes. These potholes are the result of glacier activity in the Wisconsin glaciation, which ended approximately 10,000 years ago More than half of the potholes have been drained and converted to agriculture.^[1][2] Pothole loss is 90% or more in places.^[3] Those potholes that remain are important habitats for migratory waterfowl and other wildlife, supporting more than 50% of North America's migratory waterfowl.^[2] The Prairie Pothole Region is one of North America's most important areas for duck reproduction

We stopped in Devils Lake for the night at Wal-Mart.