Inside the Boom: My Family’s Oil Patch Tour

Last weekend my parents and brother came to visit from Massachusetts. They’d never been to North Dakota before, so we headed up to the oil patch (I like to make sure visitors see where their energy comes from, so later that week I sent them on a coal mine tour). As we drove north towards Watford City, rain started spattering the windshield. Huge trucks whipped by in the other lane, sucking our little car towards them. The sky was slate gray, and natural gas flared along both sides of the road. “It kind of feels like we’re driving into hell,” my mom said.