After 13 wonderful days where I was hosted by Barbara and Jarrett I now return home in just a few hours. The last trip we made together was not the least – and it was a long trip! Some 1260 miles in all, that is something!
Early on Saturday 23 February we started, Barbara, Jarrett and I. I had asked them if they really wanted to go this far, but the word “no” seemed to be quite absent in their language. If the weather conditions were not too bad, they said.
Well it was a very nice trip. We started early, at 04.00 Saturday morning. Jarret and Barbara drove each their turn, I sat in behind reading my students’ copies that I have to correct and send feedback be e-mail before returning home. About seven o’ clock I think it was, daylight had begun to come, so I started taking pictures of the rising sun.
It was very special to leave from home at minus 20 degrees Celsius, and then se the temperature going down and down, like last week when we went south to Kansas in minus 30 degrees Celsius when it was at the coldest. On this trip I think it stopped at minus 25 degrees Celsius maybe, somewhere before Fargo, a town situated at the Minnesota and North Dakota border.
From Fargo we went west on Interstate 94, at 75 Mph. I took pictures of snow crystal covered trees and of whatever I could see of interesting things. After some hours we arrived at Bismarck, a bigger city on the North Dakota prairie, and after Bismarck we entered gradually "the Banana Belt". We noticed it in the way that the snow and the strong cold disappeared, the fields were naked and the cattle were out on the prairie. It was like going from winter to spring. I Dickinson we could feel the spring in the air. We drove up to the Contex Energy Company’s buildings, met with Jeff and settled what was to be settled with him. He gave us a map and explained to us how to find the land where the minerals are.
Just after Dickinson the first oil well showed up. Some of them were moving slowly, pumping up the oil from the deep. Others were standing there without moving, like silent witnesses of oil hopes that did not turn out the be fulfilled. The trucks we met were almost all carrying oil. By the oil wells there are three or four tanks where they collect the oil. At a small town called Belfield we turned north on highway US85. We would have to look out for a certain milestone # in order to find the land we were looking for. And we found it. Along the highway there were flat fields, a small creek and a small wood. A road starts east from the highway, it follows the north border of section 19. We stop the car and go out. Looking over the prairie, taking pictures of what we see. –So here Sivert Kambestad had his farm during the first half of the last century. We can see a house built during the last decades, a car is parked outside. A ittle further we can see an older house, and a silo and a few horses. There is no one we can ask, which by the way would not be useful after all. What is funny by this thing is that the land that we see is not interesting for us. It is what we do not see, what is under the surface, that interests us; the minerals.
Early on Saturday 23 February we started, Barbara, Jarrett and I. I had asked them if they really wanted to go this far, but the word “no” seemed to be quite absent in their language. If the weather conditions were not too bad, they said.
Well it was a very nice trip. We started early, at 04.00 Saturday morning. Jarret and Barbara drove each their turn, I sat in behind reading my students’ copies that I have to correct and send feedback be e-mail before returning home. About seven o’ clock I think it was, daylight had begun to come, so I started taking pictures of the rising sun.
It was very special to leave from home at minus 20 degrees Celsius, and then se the temperature going down and down, like last week when we went south to Kansas in minus 30 degrees Celsius when it was at the coldest. On this trip I think it stopped at minus 25 degrees Celsius maybe, somewhere before Fargo, a town situated at the Minnesota and North Dakota border.
From Fargo we went west on Interstate 94, at 75 Mph. I took pictures of snow crystal covered trees and of whatever I could see of interesting things. After some hours we arrived at Bismarck, a bigger city on the North Dakota prairie, and after Bismarck we entered gradually "the Banana Belt". We noticed it in the way that the snow and the strong cold disappeared, the fields were naked and the cattle were out on the prairie. It was like going from winter to spring. I Dickinson we could feel the spring in the air. We drove up to the Contex Energy Company’s buildings, met with Jeff and settled what was to be settled with him. He gave us a map and explained to us how to find the land where the minerals are.
Just after Dickinson the first oil well showed up. Some of them were moving slowly, pumping up the oil from the deep. Others were standing there without moving, like silent witnesses of oil hopes that did not turn out the be fulfilled. The trucks we met were almost all carrying oil. By the oil wells there are three or four tanks where they collect the oil. At a small town called Belfield we turned north on highway US85. We would have to look out for a certain milestone # in order to find the land we were looking for. And we found it. Along the highway there were flat fields, a small creek and a small wood. A road starts east from the highway, it follows the north border of section 19. We stop the car and go out. Looking over the prairie, taking pictures of what we see. –So here Sivert Kambestad had his farm during the first half of the last century. We can see a house built during the last decades, a car is parked outside. A ittle further we can see an older house, and a silo and a few horses. There is no one we can ask, which by the way would not be useful after all. What is funny by this thing is that the land that we see is not interesting for us. It is what we do not see, what is under the surface, that interests us; the minerals.
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