Day 15, August 9: raindrops keep fallin' on my head

Baker, MT to Hettinger, ND (oops, I forgot to start my Cyclemeter app for this day, but here's a Google link to the route)
Distance: 89.4 miles
Average speed: 14.5 mph
Maximum speed: 24.5 mph
Riding time: 6:28
Weather: Rain in the forecast again, so I left before sunrise. The road was a little damp from rain in the night. Temperatures started in the low 60s and got up to the high 70s. It didn't get very warm because of persistent cloudiness. The winds were variable: still in the morning and in different directions during the afternoon, but I did have some tailwinds.
Terrain: uphill 919 feet, downhill 1152 feet. The low point in the first part of the cross section is the Little Missouri River.

I followed US 12 all day.

As I left Baker, I saw several horsehead oil pumps.

Horsehead oil pump just after dawn.

Horsehead oil pump a few miles east of Baker, ND. 

Power, oil, death.

 A turtle in the road with a 70 mph speed limit. I got this one to the other side of the road.

How many times has this turtle crossed the highway?

After a dozen miles or so I reached North Dakota. It took me 11 days of cycling and 3 days of rest to cross Montana.

Lots of bullet holes in this sign. The Montana sign a few hundred yards away has no holes.

I had US 12 virtually to myself. In the first eleven miles, two cars passed me and two cars approached me.

This part of North Dakota has some badlands topography. That is, to quote Wikipedia, "a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind and water." Some miles north of here along the Little Missouri River is Theodore Roosevelt National Park which has marvelous badlands landforms.

Badlands landforms.

Energy processing facility.

I could see this plant flaring off natural gas from at least 10 miles down the road, but the flame coming out of the tall stack is only barely visible in this photo.

The section of US 12 near Marmarth, ND has two roadside statues.

Cowboy silhouette near Marmarth, ND.

Lifesize T Rex silhouette near Marmarth, ND.

I occasionally saw sheep ranches. This pasture has sheep and an alpaca. The rancher saw me taking a picture, and he said that the alpaca keeps the coyotes away.

This alpaca protects the sheep from coyotes on this ranch near Marmarth, ND.

I occasionally saw wind turbines, and some were huge.

Wind turbines in a wheat field. A road wide enough for big trucks between two of the turbines gives some sense of how large
these turbines are.

Wind turbines in a sunflower field.

Rain started coming down on me a mile or two west of Bowman, ND. I took shelter at Prairie Mountain Electric Motor Inc. The buildings have no eaves, so I stepped inside a garage and waited the rain out. It was Sunday but the owner of this place happened to show up and was very welcoming, even though I was trespassing in a way.

Any port in a storm. I waited out the rain for about 30 minutes here. The business name does seem self contradictory: 

"prairie mountain."

Some motorcyclists waited out the rain at the Frontier Travel Center in Bowman. They likely attended the 75th Sturgis Rally, which was the largest ever, with more than a million attendees. The motorcyclists going to and returning from Sturgis have to avoid Nebraska, which requires helmets for all riders (18 other states require helmets). Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota do not have helmet requirements.

The cloudscapes were often beautiful, I tracked a couple of small storm cells as they moved northeastward across the sky.

The gray area of rain on the left is the same storm that I got caught in just west of Bowman.

Grain storage and allied activities in Scranton, ND. Rain on the right.

A huge pipeline facility.

A rainstorm was gaining on me and scattered raindrops pelted my helmet. I pulled into Reeder, where I took refuge under a picnic shelter in a small park on Reeder's Main Street.

Motorcycles parked on Reeder's Main Street. The motorcyclists are in the bar across the street. US 12 once passed within a few hundred feet of these buildings. 

Reeder's current population is 162. It was founded in 1908 and named after a Milwaukee Railroad engineer. When its bank was built around 1910 or maybe 1920, the town had respective populations of 198 and 258. That doesn't seem like very many people to support a bank.

Former bank at the intersection of Main Street and the former route of US 12, 

I wait out the rain for about 30 or 40 minutes and head on. I consider trying to push past Hettinger to Lemmon, SD so that tomorrow's destination of Mobridge isn't quite as daunting. I would also like to take advantage of a tailwind that is pushing me along nicely, but I dodged heavy rain twice today and did not want to push my luck.

More nice clouds, and some rain on the right. I decide to avoid that rain by ending my ride in Hettinger.

Huge billowing cumulonimbus over Hettinger.