In The Eye Of The Beholder

Updates

June 10, 2013: earlier this morning, I dropped off my bicycle to have some routine maintenance done. I had to wait ten minutes before someone was able to assist me. They were not much busier than usual for a Monday morning.

June 10, 2013: the more I think about the article linked below, the more it validates my feelings about the Bakken. Note: not one word about:

• CLR's 14-well Atlanta pad next to the river southwest of Williston
• Statoil's 4-well Pyramid pad northwest of Williston with 38 tanks on the pad
• ONEOK's natural gas gathering and processing plants northwest of Williston, northeast of Watford City
• the Chicago hot-dog stand outside of Alexander; was there a line there?
• the BNSF yard in Minot
• any of the 22 CBR terminals
• whether he stopped at any RR crossing waiting for a 120-unit oil train to pass (and whether he counted the cars)
• the huge industrial parks west of Williston; the huge industrial parks east of Williston
• Crosby
• the incredible housing developments going up around Watford City
• having a great steak dinner at the bank-restaurant in Watford City
• about the "new" highways in the area, and the biggest ND highway budget coming this summer
• the water depots all over the oil patch

But I will always remember that he waited ten minutes for a waitress to serve him. The story continues to add validity to my opinion that even the local folks really have no idea how big the Bakken story is. It is incomprehensible and that's why people end up writing about the traffic.

Original Post

The Bakken as seen by the managing editor of The Dickinson Press.

Williston? Well, for those who haven’t been there in a while, it is what you’ve heard it is. Streets are packed, you seat yourself in sit-down restaurants and wait 10 minutes to get a waitress.

Walmart was crazy for 2 p.m. on a Thursday, though not the end-of-times, barren shelves scene many of us have heard it was. Yes, they have a Buffalo Wild Wings now for those of you who are still upset Dickinson didn’t get one first. Though a man told me it had to close in mid-afternoon a few days back because it ran out of food.

In small towns along Highway 2, I get a sense that things are beginning to settle down as infrastructure begins to catch up and rigs get replaced by pump jacks.

See the packed streets at this video, posted Memorial Day weekend, 2013, Williston, North Dakota.

We need more photojournalists. Compare this article with what Mail On-Line might provide. I'm not talking about the content. I'm talking about how photos, graphics, and maps add so much more to the story. It would have been great to have some glossies embedded in the linked article above of the road trip. 

Ten minutes for a waitress. Rosa Parks should have been so fortunate.