Day 6. Across North Dakota.

We awoke at our usual time but a quick check of the weather radar led us to adjust our departure time in order to avoid some heavy showers lined up along our route. We eventually got underway at 9:30 and our strategy paid off. The pavement was wet but it didn't rain on us until later in the day! We resumed our Westward route along Route 2. We really enjoyed the ride again today - good road, little traffic and good speed made.

 First Gas stop of the day at Devil's Lake, ND.

Coffee stop & Tom checking the radar again to see if we could take off the rain gear. We couldn't!! So  it was back on the road again under darkening skies.

We did encounter this sight directly on our route and if course we had to stop. It was the highlight of my day!!

Somehow these distances don't seem to equate being in the center of N. America, but who am I to question this fact? This doesn't seem to explain the discrepancy either:

After this interlude it was back to business and back on the road. There were plenty of ominous black rain clouds on the horizon and to the North and South but amazingly we only caught a few brief showers. Our poor bikes got filthy though from lots of dirty road spray. This makes us sad. But we know they will clean up once we have access to a hose pipe!

Our destination for tonight was Williston, in western North Dakota. The city of Williston, in the middle of North Dakota's Bakken oil patch grew by 67% from 2010 to 2014. As we headed West there was an incongruous juxtaposition of farmland and fracking sites. I gather that the City is now in a bust as the dropping price of oil has led to economic difficulties. Thankfully we are tucked up in one of the nice new hotels built to accommodate the workers that flooded here in the past. Apparently, back in the boom days a reasonably priced hotel room was difficult to come by. Not the case today.

Trip mileage: 336.8 Odometer mileage: 1965