Wild and Wooly out Williston way

I received a startling report this morning (Tuesday) from Williston, North Dakota. Currently there are some 84 companies involved in the oil industry out there in western North Dakota. There are now 258 wells and it takes between 2000 and 2200 semi loads of water per well. Traffic is another story...at one location on Highway 85 south of Williston, in a 24 hour period, there were 29,000 vehicles through the intersection and 60% of them were semi's. Traffic there is worse than our viaduct here in Shelby...it's generally backed up for a half to 3/4 of a mile. Rent in Williston is now $2000 for a one bedroom and $3400 for a three bedroom. There are no more hook ups for campers any where in the area and the North Dakota farmers are charging $800 per camper per month for rent and the county allows three campers per farmstead. Figure it out! The Wal Mart in Williston no longer stocks shelves, they bring out pallets of merchandise at night, set it in the isles, and the Wal-Martians (seen in numerous internet forwards) then take off the pallets what they want or "think" they want and/or need. Earlier this month, the Williston Wal Mart had 148 campers overnight in their parking lot. Folks are now bringing vehicles to Bismark for repairs because there are no available body shops in Williston to do the work. The Williston McDonalds has announced that they will pay $15 per hour with a $500 sign on bonus and a paid medical plan. Talk about leaving the light on...the local Motel 6 doesn't have to...they are renting rooms for close to $130 a night. You think Williston is wild and wooly...Minot's population has grown by a projected 9000 people and they expect to see 75,000 in the next five years. Their hospital there has just hired 115 nurses from the Philippians because they can't find enough local nurses. All I can say is, if this happens here, I hope His Worship, the honorable mayor, Dr. Larry J. Bonderud will give us a stop light at the end of our viaduct! More on Williston in a future Puffman blog. Right now, I'm going to give Jim Anderson at Grizzy Sports in Choteau a call and see if he wants to get together some Carhartt clothing for us and as soon as we get a water truck, I'll be doing this blog from Williston. If Jim can supply the Carhartt (he has competitive prices, even lower than Great Falls), I plan on asking the radio station if we can use the pickup that we drive in the Shelby parade. We'll get it back in the spring when we're rich.