The drop in the price of oil has hit the Bakken Shale Oil community. Bowman North Dakota is no exception. The large hotels are only partially full. Parking lots house idle tanker trucks and rigs. Work continues, on pipelines and other infrastructure, awaiting the day when the price of oil rises again. Very different to the mood when I came through North Dakota four years ago.

I am mainlining on Route 12, one of the greatest unknown and empty two lane highways in the country . I have followed it across the belly of Montana in a long slow descent from the high plateau around Helena. It is cattle and wheat country, with meandering streams lined with dark trees marking the otherwise open grassland. Route 12 continues on across South Dakota and into Minnesota. I will follow it tomorrow.

I did get a shot of guilt today, as I sipped coffee on the bench outside the mini-mart in downtown Baker MT. I was talking to an energetic woman from Wyoming, about my age in a big white pickup, who wondered what brought me to town. My reply -- I was just following Route 12 to the East -- was clearly unsatisfactory as she replied: "Well, you clearly don't have much to do then..."   Maybe so, ma'am, maybe so.