A Montana drive

[steelslaver]

My little sister came up for a memorial for my oldest sister.

While she was here she got sick and went to hospital with a couple issues. They got those under control and this morning I took her to the airport. The airport is 135 miles one way from here all 2 lane roads. I left the house at 9:50, drove her to the airport, got her a wheel chair and attendant and saw her enter security. Left there drove to the Walmart on the way back out of town and spend about 30 minutes picking up a few things. Drove home and pulled back in my parking spot at house in just under 5 hours. There are 2 stop signs and 1 small town between me and city with airport and airport is easy access from my direction. I drove with control around 73-74mph as speed limit is 70mph. On the long down hills I let er rip and might hit 85-90. I was passed by about as many rigs as I passed. Very little traffic. A couple deer in ditches by road and one really nice buck antelope. That changes early am and in the evening. i saw 1 HP on way out of town this morning and pulled over when I meet 2 sheriffs running lights and sirens about 20 miles from getting home. I had meet a long line of motorcycles maybe 20 some minutes before that. Hope none of them screwed up.

Gonna go sit in my 9' diameter 32 " deep stock tank we use for a pool.

 

[Wyo]

Sounds about a typical drive in my part of the country - northern Wyoming. Once you get off the interstates you usually see very little traffic. I've driven through Shirley Basin in the wintertime, about 75 miles, many times without seeing a single other vehicle. Some folks find that a little disconcerting. I find it disconcerting if I see more than about a half dozen cars/trucks. Place is getting way overcrowded!

 

[Fishinfool]

Steelslaver - are dust storms like the one that caused that recent multi car pile up common in Montana? We seem to have that with snow caused "white-outs" every winter in certain stretches of highway here in PA.

I always wondered why people didn't just pull over and stop when they seen something like that ahead of them. Until I got caught in a white out once - can happen in the blink of an eye...

Larry

 

[steelslaver]

The dust storm deal no. Ground blizzards every once in the while. Most areas just do not have much traffic. In my 270 mile round trip, I didn't meet anywhere near 100 other outfits. I have driven miles and miles and never met another car just like Wyo. I had just got to edge of Billings to pick my sister up from hospital, maybe 50 miles north of where that happened when that happened. That wreck was real close to where Custer met his fate and on a Crow Indian reservation. Speed limit 80mph. It had been a real hot day and a thunderstorm rolled though. In Billings first there was a big blast of wind then it poured with water running in the streets and it was over in 30-40 minutes. Where that pileup happened there are huge wheat fields and with dry land wheat you only plant every other year to let the moisture content in ground build back up, If that storm fro blew though a big fallow fields it could pick up a huge amount of dust. I saw one coming once working a drilling rig in the Dakotas and the air was almost black from the ground to hundreds of feet up and when it hit us you could hardly see anything at all. I have never hit one that bad driving, but have been in winter ground blizzards. Just stopping isn't that great an idea, because your apt to get rear ended, plus someone coming up from behind and seeing you tail lights will "follow" them right into you even if you are pulled onto the shoulder.

Two cars over loaded with drunks had a high speed head one at night near there years ago. One car was in wrong lanes with lights off. I think it was like 12 or 13 dead. At the time it was the worst 2 car wreck in the US. It is still a poor place to drive during a weekend night, but then sadly that is the whole state.

 

[Old Arkansawyer]

My little sister came up for a memorial for my oldest sister.

While she was here she got sick and went to hospital with a couple issues. They got those under control and this morning I took her to the airport. The airport is 135 miles one way from here all 2 lane roads. I left the house at 9:50, drove her to the airport, got her a wheel chair and attendant and saw her enter security. Left there drove to the Walmart on the way back out of town and spend about 30 minutes picking up a few things. Drove home and pulled back in my parking spot at house in just under 5 hours. There are 2 stop signs and 1 small town between me and city with airport and airport is easy access from my direction. I drove with control around 73-74mph as speed limit is 70mph. On the long down hills I let er rip and might hit 85-90. I was passed by about as many rigs as I passed. Very little traffic. A couple deer in ditches by road and one really nice buck antelope. That changes early am and in the evening. i saw 1 HP on way out of town this morning and pulled over when I meet 2 sheriffs running lights and sirens about 20 miles from getting home. I had meet a long line of motorcycles maybe 20 some minutes before that. Hope none of them screwed up.

Gonna go sit in my 9' diameter 32 " deep stock tank we use for a pool.

Girl friend and I use to ride horses on a ranch in Western Ok
which had wind mills and stock tanks. On hot days we skinny
dipped in those cool water tanks.

 

[Muss Muggins]

Did your sister get home without incident?

 

[steelslaver]

Yes, thanks for asking. She flew to Minneapolis, where here son had flown to meet her and escort her on the final leg to Tampa. She got home late last night.

What she had was 2 things a bulging disk and a type of intestinal infection. While neither were related, the combination of the 2, being over weight and 66 really did a number on her when she had just flow up from Florida and then rode about 800 miles in cars to get from airport to sisters then to memorial and back to my sisters. Steroids for her back and antibiotics for her infection got them under control and she has a appointment with her home Dr to deal with them further.

For an idea, I drove about 1500 miles all inside the state last week. To and from memorial (Sat-Mon), to see sister in hospital and back home (Tues,Wed), pick up sister at hospital and back home, (Fri) take sister to plane and back home yesterday. It has been in 90-100 degrees the whole time. Glad I have 2 Lincoln Town Cars.

 

[Maddog 521]

Hope your sister gets well soon.
Montana is a unique state.
Nothing better than driving in the wide open places of this great country.

 

[mtgianni]

Steelslaver - are dust storms like the one that caused that recent multi car pile up common in Montana? We seem to have that with snow caused "white-outs" every winter in certain stretches of highway here in PA.

I always wondered why people didn't just pull over and stop when they seen something like that ahead of them. Until I got caught in a white out once - can happen in the blink of an eye...

Larry

Some one had quoted that there was a plowed field that caused the dust storm, not a fallowed field as Steelslayer described. No one is going to plow a field in MT in July. There is a spot north of Idaho Falls that has had the interstate closed a couple of times in the last three years that I have been through there. The same issue with blowing dust of fallow land. To move a ton of top soil off an acre of ground it is only as thick as a dime.

 

[steelslaver]

Back when in the early to mid 80s some big corporations bought huge chunks of land in eastern Montana sagebrush country that had never seen a plow. They plowed everything but the rocks on top the ridges, with huge tractors and never planted anything. The dust was horrible and you would see streams of it drifting along just above the ground and drive though puddles of dust in low spots. I didn't see it really blow there. I was working on a drilling rig about 40 miles North of Miles City. I had a piece of foam rubber I would wrap around my air cleaner and blow out at the rig and when back in town. I could tell the difference if I did not.

The corps got paid to not grow stuff, borrowed money on the "improved" land, then went bankrupt, and left implement dealers and their suppliers hanging. For years you could see the sagebrush growing in rows where the plow had rolled the dirt over.
When I drove though that piece of country last week I saw over a hundred new giant windmills not a one turning. Why am I suspicious?


Montana has about 32 million tons of wind erosion a year and 11 million tons of water erosion and that is a lot of dirt. Last year it lost more to the wind than Texas which is 70% bigger.

 

[smoothshooter]

Sounds about a typical drive in my part of the country - northern Wyoming. Once you get off the interstates you usually see very little traffic. I've driven through Shirley Basin in the wintertime, about 75 miles, many times without seeing a single other vehicle. Some folks find that a little disconcerting. I find it disconcerting if I see more than about a half dozen cars/trucks. Place is getting way overcrowded!

I love the north central part of Wyoming in the Bighorns.
Burgess Junction, Ranchester, etc.

 

[Skeet 028]

The road from Burgess Junction to Lovell is one really nasty bit of road. Steep winding slick with early(or late)snow storms. Had a friend drove it coming down with a 30 ft camper...Bout burned up his brakes and he and his wife were scared 1/2 the way. He told me never again. I had already told him not to come that way. But he was a flatland fellow. Lived back east at about 60-70 ft above sea level. And as Wyo said that Shirley Basin road can be devoid of traffic...esp at night. Heck I drove to Cody and down the Southfork Rd going hunting early morning 0300 and in the 100 miles saw 3 vehicles. But unfortunately, there is more traffic these days