Driving in the Northern Plains States

It’s difficult to make a lot of progress adding new counties to my collecting while limited to just a weekend. It’s doubly hard in places where it can take an hour or two to drive between county seats. Such was the case on my recent trip to North Dakota and Montana. Unlike Kentucky or Georgia where counties are relatively small, counties in the western half of the United States then to be quite large. While not as big as counties in the southwest, driving through the sparsely populated parts of North Dakota and Montana takes time.

The trip began with a Friday afternoon flight to MSP and then on to MOT (Minot, ND). The airport has only 5 gates and handles about 10 flights on an average day (5 arrivals and 5 departures). After an overnight in Minot, I started early Saturday morning. Much of the territory is either farm or ranch land, though from time to time, I spotted the telltale signs of fracking oil wells. With little reason to stop other than to mail postcards from the county seats, I made good time covering over 600 miles in about 11½ hours on the road before ending my day in Sidney, MT. The return trip to Minot on Sunday was similarly uneventful. I did stop briefly on the edge of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota for a quick photo. As might be evidence in the picture, I encountered a bit of rain, though nothing much heavier than a passing shower.

Over the course of the weekend, I added 17 more postcards to my collection. Other than the handful of counties along I-94 I had previously driven through, much of the trip was in areas I’d never visited before. Here are the before and after maps showing my progress.

Another trip to Montana is in the works for mid-October which should fill in most of the remaining counties in the middle part of the state. If all goes well, I’ll be including a few counties in Wyoming as well. Currently, I’m not planning any other county collecting trip this year, but one never knows. Whatever happens, there will be at least two more post this year—the upcoming trip and my annual year end summary. Check back soon for more details.

Until then…

Happy Travels
Brian