Day 17, Montana & ND Oil

Day 17, Tuesday 6/26 – Great Falls MT to Bottineau ND, 621 miles/6019 ttl

Route 2 across Montana provides a taste of the big prairie with hundreds of miles of grassland and fields of wheat. The equipment the farmers were using were as big as the 1000 acre fields. The towns were typically a collection of small tight houses around a huge grain elevator.

The Missouri River near Fort Peck

Trains & Grain Elevators were a common theme

Western North Dakota = oil = boom towns

I turned north in Williston (just over the state line) to try and get away from the trucks of all sizes, traffic and smell of crude. Towns away from Williston & Minot are tiny and spread far apart. The lack of gas stations caught me by surprise and provided a few worry some miles.  The display on the bike said I had 12 miles worth of gas left when I found a (closed) station in Bowbells (population 336) that took a credit card at the pump.

Every motel was filled with oil workers. I had to travel 200 miles from Williston and into the night to find a vacancy.

The beautiful rolling prairie is dotted with small lakes and new oil & gas wells – everywhere.