Loooooooong week

 Man, it's been a long one for sure...MPeasy went to Helena just as the winterapocalypse set in. The family was getting mom into an assisted living place and I decided to stay and play the guitar and.....well....that was about the entire plan. So on Saturday I get a call that the Phizer vaccine will be given to everybody at Legacy Senior living as well as family and frequent visitors. So, I spent Super Bowl Sunday jacking up the old white truck and putting on the studded snow tires that haven't been on it in ten years. Of course one thing leads to another and the starter froze up in mid tire effort so me and the neighbor Josh had to change that out as well. So I drive from balmy Hamilton to -20 Helena and we have a reunion and wake up the morning of our vaccine with no heat in MP's moms house....yikes... Turns out the exhaust of the new high efficient furnace was broken and in the extreme cold the intake was sucking in the exhaust and shutting down the system. So Tom and I Mcguivered a fix and walla, shots done, furnace fixed , garage cleaned out to park our car, new tires, new starter and a trip to the Casino. Perfect.

It's no news to anybody that more than 1/2 of the USA is experiencing  extreme winter weather. Here it was Winter Storm Uri and now it's Winter Storm Viola soon to be followed by Winter Strom Get me the $@#%&* out of here... Ya know in Alaska they don't personalize the winter by naming it. Instead they just blame it on the Russians as it's usually a Siberian Front that is responsible and Alaskans go about the business of dealing with the Polar Vortex or the Mega High or the Aluetian trough. But here in Montana it's just sooooo exciting. Every morning I wake up to old smiley here and garner some real world survival skills from him. I kid you not , he told us the other morning the best way to stay warm is to stay inside.

 

I've driven through a few blizzards. In fact just a couple weeks ago we had a class 9 through Utah and of course between Anchorage and Soldotna I almost stopped the car in a whiteout in the Portage area returning from the Great Alaska Shootout...of course that was shortly after Sam got car sick and threw up a Hostess Pink Snowball into a frisbee right behind the drivers seat...you get the point, it's stressful and the blizzard on the way to Helena was a class 8 I'd guess. I stopped to help a couple cars that parked in the ditch and were way to stuck for me to do much except make sure the ladies stayed safe and the usual Hamilton-Helena 2 and 1/2 hour trip was 4 and 1/2 hours....But we got the shots and there's light at the  end of the tunnel, and it ain't a train.  In two more weeks we'll get our second shot and receive our get out of jail free card and just maybe we can go from this.

to this.

But being Alaskan as the rest of Hamy and Stevi were in lock down we drove to Stevi to shop at the Mennonite store because we have nice new studded tires and we just love shopping there.  We drove the old highway and stopped for our tradition of eating Jalepeno Poppers as we drive and reflect on the winter scene. I love the ' snow snakes ' that the wind drives across the road. Here's the scenes which was really kind of in between flurries.

As I type MP's waiting for me to finish so we can get our daily 3 mile morning in... You've heard me say it a million times, ' ya just gotta want to do it "....and little old fashion tuff has to come into play as well.   Geno used to say ' Christ hates a coward '...lets ALL carry on.

Life ain't always a tire swing

 We got the call last Thursday. Cousin Bobby found MP's mom lying next to the bed unconscious and she was in I.C.U. at St Petes  hospital. She had somehow fallen and her body was accepting room temp so she was hypothermic with a body temp of  93. Somehow she had gotten her hand tangled up in the box springs under the bed and her index finger was horribly mangled ....It looked like the end.  We packed immediately and left Green Valley at 4:00 a.m.. Our plan was to drive north staying in touch with the family so we could get MP to a major airport along the way when it was time. I stayed on Highway 15 all the way from Las Vegas, 700 hundred miles on the first day and 500 on the second as my mother in law seemed to be stable and maybe getting better, she is one tough lady. To make a long story short it wasn't long before we got a pic of her sitting up in bed eating salmon, yep, she ain't dyeing this time. At first she had lost memory from the hypothermia but that came around and then she had her finger amputated and she was playing her suduko puzzles with what she calls ' stubby' ...jeez...So, we're back in Montana. MP's mom will be released to an assisted living soon and all is right with the world, just another bump in the road. It's been an emotional week and a bit of a whirlwind.

Needless to say I didn't have time for our usual daisy sniffing along the way. But we did stop for fuel in Dubois Idaho and I was duly impressed by the isolation of this place. You don't get here by accident. Once a thriving town it now has just houses and one gas station/ grocery / beer / front porch sitting  all in one store...Downtown Dubois, you must go someday and wonder how and why people live there...I'll find out on the next trip when I have time to talk story with the locals.

You know you're in the far west when you see a sign that says ' next services 82 miles '.  This is what that looks like.

Lucky for me , right before we had to blast off to Montana we got to do some ultra cool stuff....Growing up as an Army Brat one of my hobbies is Military History, I read a lot. So right in Green Valley is a National Historical location which is the only Titan Missile Silo in existence. This place along with 11 other were rushed into service in the desert and came on line as a nuclear deterrent at the height of the Cold War, 1963.  Each missile had multiple re entry nuclear bombs. Together with the other Titan Batteries in Arkansas and North Dakota it amounted to hundreds of Nuclear weapons to assure what was called M.A.D. = mutually assured destruction . Naturally the Russians had Hundreds as well so both sides new it would be pointless to push the button when there was so much fire power involved. I have my own theory....considering that missile powered space flight was so new and complex I think they figured most of these things wouldn't work so redundancy was the key to winning a nuclear war. Here's me top side and the missile looking down, very cool.

At the Titan site we were encouraged to visit the Pima County Aerospace museum, we were told that it was very covid friendly as it's huge, almost 100 acres. So the next day we were there and it's about the coolest I've ever been to. Max and me did the Boeing Museum is Seattle but this place is like Seattle's on steroids. When I was a kid not only did I see a Nike Missile launch at Fort Greeley Alaska but many times we were at Edwards and George Air Force Base in California which is part of the desert training area with Fort Irwin where we were stationed. The experimental Delta wing Bomber the EXB-70 crashed near Fort Irwin...So it was cool for me to see all the planes I've heard of and so many that I've seen like these first swept wing bombers the B-47 that were stationed at Eielson AFB when us kids would go there to swim.

As we walked and I described all the planes to MPeasy A-10 tank busters and B-1 bombers flew over  from the museums neighbor, Davis Monthan AFB. The entire area is aviation. This Korean War era Mig-17 was one of my favorites. It battled our new swept wing fighter the F-83 Sabres and I have to say the Sabre looked to be a way more refined aircraft...in fact all the Russian Aircraft looked to be  kind of primitive compared  to their American counterparts and many were obvious copies. Here's the Mig and me in front of  a vertical takeoff British Harrier that won the War of the Falklands for the country that brought us the Beatles. 

As we were dropping some lettuce in the gift shop I noticed this on the wall and asked the cashier if she knew what it was called and she didn't. Well it's an Alaska thing I guess as it's the Marston Mat that they say helped win the war in the Aleutians , almost instant runway and...works darn nice for launching boats on the Kenai River.

Right down the road is what they call ' The Bone Yard ' .... It's actually where hundreds, no thousands of decommissioned airplanes rest in the dry and metal friendly desert. Some of these planes are relics but a huge portion of them have been put away with care and are maintained if ever needed again, the work of the 309th Aerospace + Regeneration Group. Very impressive the military might of our country. We saw hundreds of Hercules type cargo aircraft lined up I'd bet dollars to donuts from what I know of the U.S. military our guys could have them in the air in days. I told MP the worlds bullies like Kim Jong-Un ought to get a free tour.

So life is kinda normal. We're in Hammy and enjoying being in our new home. We walked along the river this morning and although it ain't the world famous it's just right for us right now, right here. Ain't MP cute walking in the snow squall ? I'll be batching it come mid week for a while when she goes to Helena to help get her Mom settled into the new place...it's a big part of why we're here....it's love.

We came home to a beautifully remodeled bathroom. My new friend Steve Robinson made it new again and as he decided to set the vanity into the wall it's made the worlds smallest bathroom way roomier. We love it  Stevie....mucho gracias.... I hope ya all come back to Mile 14.😎