[Magdalen] Windy, waiting Williston

[ROGER STOKES]

Given the winds I experienced in Williston, and which stayed with me across North Dakota, why have I seen only one solitary wind turbine in the state?  Williston gives every impression of a city whose growth has been halted unexpectedly, and probably awaits a significant rise in oil prices to restart its development.  As someone observed to me in Billings its economy has crashed, as I had read earlier in a newspaper.

Turning out of the road where my hotel was I discovered the next junction I had to take was 333 miles later as I was on US-2.  To start off there were "nodding donkeys" pumping oil into storage tanks, and the occasional flare of natural gas.  A few tanks indicated where gas was being collected but more traditional silos were not to be seen for some way.  The only constant along a virtually deserted highway, between a very few towns, was the wind.
My GPS indicated numerous roads to either side labelled as xth Avenue or Street, often in the hundreds, but frequently there was no visible sign of development and many were unpaved - if you could discern them at all  This is country ripe for development if anybody can get the figures to make it worthwhile.
Roger