Life in the Oil Patch -- Excellent Reporting -- Also: Two More Man-Camps in Dickinson -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

From the oil patch:

"I'm making more now than I would've if I would've gone to college," Austin says. As the sun sets behind him, the sky turns a hazy pink.

"I was going to go to school for alternative energy - and here I am in the oil field.

"So much for solar panels."

Ah, yes, solar energy. The link to the story from which the above quote comes from is here.

The lede:

WILLISTON, N.D. -- You can almost smell the opportunity along Highway 2. It oozes deep from the sloping North Dakota prairie where oil derricks and natural gas wells sprout among the drying rolls of hay.

People come here hopeful, drawn by the promise of jobs. But they probably also utter a few prayers, or expletives, when they realize just how far from home this place really is.

Or when they see the makeshift villages of narrow metal-sided buildings rising from the plains - temporary housing to accommodate what many are calling the largest oil boom in recent North American history.

Read the story; full of great quotes and observations from the West.

Also, two more man-camps in Dickinson, North Dakota.