Boredom

Soooooooo to prevent myself from dying of boredom I decided to start blogging about our exciting lives in the "Magic City" of Minot North Dakota.  For anyone that doesn't know Trevor, Charlie and I moved out to North Dakota almost a year ago for the Enbridge Energy Bakken expansion pipeline project.  It has been shall we say interesting. 

We started out in the fabulous and exciting town of Tioga, which consisted of a post office, three restaurants, three bars and a church.  Our new digs consisted of a single wide trailer in Sand Creek Estates, which had neither sand nor a creek.  It did have 50 mph winds one of which took hold of our screen door that I had a hold of and resulted in me being launched off the stairs face first into the sparce grass that was our yard.  Tioga did have a wonderful perk, and that was my mother-in-law Cathy, sister-in-law Julie and later on brother-in-law Nate who lived right up the street from us.  It was truly a blessing to have them so close and I was able to get to know them so much better.  We had days and nights of sitting out in our bag chairs enjoying some tastey beverages, marathons of HBO's series True Blood, yummy food and wonderful conversations.  There were several journeys made over to the prestegious Jungle, a "burger bar joint" that was walking distance from the trailer park, drives into Williston ( a town 45 miles away) to go to Walmart where the shelves were always half empty and many many walks with our dog Charlie boy.  It was definitely an experience that we will not forget.  I truly feel that it brought us closer as a couple laughing, joking and talking (about anything and everything) was abundant and I feel so lucky to have such a wonderfully amazing husband!!

The sign that welcomes you into the paradise that we called Tioga.  It's pretty awesome, I KNOW!!

We had some pretty wicked storms while living in the Wild Wild West a/k/a Tioga.  Many of which shook the trailer and  caused Charlie to hide under a blanket.  This was one I was driving into.  As you can see there are a lot of curves and scenery on this road.

            This cloud was more impressive in person.  This is safe driving at it's best!!

The fabulous trailer.  Please take note of the Direct TV dish, outdoor couch, grill and igloo cooler.  I would love to take credit for this gloreous protrayal of trailer park living at it's best, but alas this was taken after we had moved to Minot.  I hadn't taken a picture of our home in Tioga when we lived there so I had to take one on a visit back out there.  Please also pay attention to the building behind the lovely trailer.  This is called a skid house, a term I had never heard in all my 29 years (well 28 when we moved there).  These are brought in on big flat bead truck with skies on both ends.  The flat bed tilts and they "skid" right off.  The roughnecks on the oil rigs and drills out here live in these buildings usually four to six per skid house.  They were relatively quiet due to their long hours and consequtive days on the job, but when they had a couple of days off and approximately 5-10 cases of beer the appearence and atmosphere were comparable to the movie  "Escape from LA" and/or "Zombieland". 

Overall the Tioga experience was one that brought us closer together and helped us realize that you can really make an situation good with a little bit of love,laughter, the game of life and cribbage.  I will cherish many of the memories I have from the spring and summer and will most definitely never forget the trailer life.