Leaving Baker Montana and crossing into North Dakota, the scenery improved as I moved into an interesting area of the badlands with more trees than normal.

Noticing a turnoff for a scenic lookout, I pulled on to the gravel road, but liked this view of hillside deer more than the advertised view of the road.

This portion of Old Highway 16 was passable in my rental thanks to the glory of God.

I more extensively researched other areas of this trip, as I figured this portion in extremely rural southwestern North Dakota would simply shoot me towards a few old homesteads or schoolhouses along the way.

Sure enough, I was bombing along the US-12 when the city of Marmarth forced me to stop. Once a railroad town along the line from Chicago to Seattle, Marmarth's one-time population of 1318 has now fallen to a mere 94 souls. The light traffic and very few people out on Main Street would've made me guess even fewer people call Marmarth home.

Peeking inside the building from the previous photo.

Kitty-corner from the previous building stood two much more monumental abandoned buildings - the Barber Auditorium and the First National Bank of Marmarth.

The size of both of these buildings speaks to Marmarth's status in the 1910s. This status is also shown in the directory given by the hardware store owner: "there were two banks, the post office, two hotels, a jewelry store, a gas station, a hospital, the train station, a meat store, a theatre, a car dealership, a laundry, and a hardware store”.

Marmarth was also fitted with natural gas piping, water and sewer lines. There was a roundhouse for repairing and rotating trains, as well as a small power plant to provide electricity.

Following a fire which destroyed the 1909 Marmarth Opera House, wool grower and philanthropist F.O. Barber financed the Barber Auditorium, constructed in 1918.

In recent years, the Barber Auditorium escaped demolition when it was purchased by the local historical society. I don't know if they'll ever manage to renovate the building, but I still love a historical society that at least wants to see a building left standing for a few more years.

The historical society also owns the old railway bunkhouse just down the street.

I couldn't have juggled my schedule around enough to end up in Marmarth instead of Glendive last night, but the thought of spending the night in an old bunkhouse for a mere $15/night made me sort of wish I'd found a way.

A detour to Marmarth would only add about an hour to the drive from Bismarck to Billings, so next time I'm driving I-94 across the country, I'm definitely staying in this bunkhouse.

Marmarth is still home to a bar/restaurant and the few parked cars there led me to pack up and get back on the road - inexplicably skipping out on taking any exteriors of Marmarth's 1914 theater, the Mystic. Not paying for cell phone data, it was only later that I learned that the restaurant is well-regarded for the area and it's not just a seedy bar where someone might get annoyed with city folk poking around Marmarth. I'll also have to go back there next time I'm in Southwest North Dakota.

Anyway, Marmarth is located in Bowman County and the county seat of Bowman County is Bowman. I headed there next to get the county courthouse (above).

Next up on the itinerary was the highpoint of North Dakota thanks to my Garmin GPS unit and some screenshots I'd taken of the route while back on WiFi at the motel in Glendive.

As you can see above though, those screenshots weren't worth a damn and my GPS longed to leave my Charger out here in the Badlands.

One positive was that I was so turned around that I ended up in Amidon, the county seat of Slope County! One negative is that I totally wasn't planning on being here, so I didn't know I had to also photograph the local Prairie Senior Citizens Center, which was the old courthouse from 1915 to 1918.

Guess I can't check off Slope County from the map of North Dakota county courthouses visited.

Okay, here we go, much better.

The highpoint of North Dakota falls into difficulty category #2, with other highpoints such as Louisiana, Michigan & Arkansas. It's a 2.7km (1.6mi) hike that climbs approximately 400 feet to bring you to the summit of North Dakota at 3,506 ft.

White Butte excited me more than Louisiana or Arkansas due to the fact that I love buttes and sprawling grasslands like you see above - not to mention the underlying composition of the soil making these buttes stand out even more than your standard buttes.

One thing that dampened my excitement though, and this was the case ever since I learned of highpoints, was that White Butte was posted with warnings of rattlesnakes, including the claim that this area crawls with rattlesnakes in the summer. That made me happy it was March, but I still worked through the hike loudly singing Wu-Tang Clan's Triumph all the way up the hill.

Heck yeah, highpoint #22!

Things are slowing down, but I'm getting ever so close to that midway point.

Peering out from White Butte, there was so much interesting land to go explore with snake pants.

Fantastic views over the surrounding landscape.

I read more accounts of hiking White Butte than any other highpoint, on account of trying to get a feel for how often people encounter rattlesnakes. In doing this, another interesting thing that was continuously mentioned was an old home near the trailhead - except that no one would check it out because of the numerous cow patties and apparent trash in the house.

I laughed at people being soft, but on the ground, it wasn't worth trying to find somewhere to step that wasn't cow shit. From the road I could pretty much see everything the house had to offer, plus the second floor had collapsed down into the first.

There were so many Horned Larks on all of these North Dakota and Montana backroads, but especially around White Butte.

Part of the reason for skipping out on that house at White Butte had to do with how I was in maybe the most desolate part of the lower 48 and the assumption that I'd just run into abandoned homesteads and old schoolhouses.

Except I didn't. There also wasn't much for street spots and that skatepark foundation that helped Baker Montana hadn't been out to any of the towns out here. Lastly, I wasn't exactly cleaning up the county courthouses either - it was still a fine afternoon cruising about, it just wasn't the most productive.

Anyway, this is the Adams County Courthouse in Hettinger.

I made the decision to simply head for Bismarck as I wanted some extra time there and I was excited to see North Dakota's capital.

Along the way I got to thinking about this being an awfully pleasant day for March and how I was going back to winter hell in Corner Brook, which led to the decision to pull off the highway at whatever the next exit was, ready to ride whatever curb I could find. As luck would have it, the next exit was Hebron and since that's the same name as a place I long to visit in Newfoundland, I remembered the town had a skatepark.

No one was around and the evening was lovely and quiet. Sure, I couldn't hit the hip unless I accepted that I was going to ride through a puddle afterwards, but it was still a great decision to stop here.

I was staying at the Ramada out by the highway in Bismarck, since it seems like every B-tier and C-tier American city only has $300/night accommodations in their downtown nowadays. I wanted to walk to dinner or just look out at the downtown, but not for the extra $230 it would have cost me.

I still went for a spin around downtown, where the Main Bar looked just too cool to pass up.

Popping inside, I was confused when the bartender handed over a Busch Light when I asked for a Busch, but on a second attempt to try and get an old man beer, "Stroh's? Olympia? Stagg? Old Style?", I was told that they're a "Budweiser, Miller type of place" - so I ended up with another Busch Light.

The next day, the morning radio talk show host was saying her husband's beer of choice is "Busch Diesel", so I'm thinking in North Dakota it goes "Busch" is Busch Light, "Busch Heavy" is normal Busch, and "Busch Diesel" is Busch Ice?

If only they had Stroh's I could have avoided this, but I suppose I would have been annoyed if they gave me a Stroh's Light, haha.

This morning I headed over to the state capitol building to check things out. The North Dakota State Capitol is one of eleven state capital buildings which doesn't have a dome and one of the rare state capitals that isn't built in the neoclassical style. This is partly because of a 1930 fire which destroyed the previous territorial capital building, built back in 1883 and 1884.

The new state capitol was built in an Art Deco style amidst The Great Depression. Workers were only paid $0.30 an hour and after many strikes, the site came under martial law. North Dakota was also forced to sell half of the capital grounds in order to continue financing the project.

If I didn't miss some gigantic impressive area, then I have to say that the other state capitol buildings I've visited in places like OKC, Sacramento, Lincoln and Springfield, are all more impressive than Bismarck.

One thing that rules about Bismarck though is the 18th story observation floor/deck. This is the tallest building in North Dakota and it's said that this is the highest public vantage point.

Not another soul was around the entire time I explored every viewpoint and moved all around the 18th floor.

If I lived in Bismarck, there would be BRN posts written on these wicker couches.

Parking downtown, I pulled my bike out to check out the buildings and ride anything cool along the way. One building I wanted to see was Bismarck's 1921 baseball stadium, but it wasn't all that impressive from the outside and I liked the Church of the Bread of Life (built in 1881) more.

Cruising around, I spotted this "three or four stair" across the street and decided to just go for a hop up it, not realizing it was a fairly tall, normal length four stair! Realizing too late, I crunched up the backend with every bit of my hamstrings, intensely committed to not getting a snakebite flat.

Pays to just go for it sometimes I guess.

Bismarck was overall a miss when it came to spots. The above banks were alright and the Civic Center had a fun stairset, but that was about it. It was sort of amazing how little there was in terms of riding.

The temps were headed up to 47°F (8°C) today in Bismarck and I didn't really want to head to the -2°C (28°F) and snow covered ground of my destination.

I popped into the Bismarck Skatepark to think about dawdling, but decided against tempting fate riding around the bowl. It was time to head northeast.

Continue to Part 7