Had a request for “Highway Music” the other day.
So – sometimes granting a reader’s request – here is a “Highway Song” from 1975:
Though “moving fast” under the Federal mandate of 55mph made that hard.
Kansas Dawn
It was even colder than that.
Must have been Christmas/New Years. I forget which way I was headed: east for Christmas, west coming home. I’ll guess I was heading home.
I’ve been stranded more times in Kansas due to blizzards than any place in all my years in the mountains – not even while I lived in Montana; this was just another occasion. At least it wasn’t Salina this time …
Coming across US34, I got past Phillipsburg in a near-blizzard but hit the storm head-on along about St Francis near the Colorado border. Had followed a snowplow to the state line but that’s where they turned around and where I discovered Colorado wasn’t even bothering. Snow was above the truck door in places. The Kansas fellows told me they were giving up as well and best advice was to head south on KS27 to Goodland; they had just cleared it – I’d better get on down that way before the road closed again. I-70 runs past Goodland and I’d be able to find a place to crash where I wouldn’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere for a few days if I couldn’t go on.
I-70 was shut down. Not really a surprise – I’ve discovered that on occasion the interstates shut down before the local highways … which may have been the reason I was on 34 instead of 70. Or maybe because I prefer 34 to 70 – I don’t recall now.
I don’t go out that time of year without being prepared to get stranded – sometime I may tell of the time I was caught between two major avalanches – so I spent the night in the truck. No point looking for a motel; travellers on I-70 had sucked up what was available and “The highway is closed” prices were in effect.
It was >cold< out. Sleep was intermittent; run the engine long enough to get the cab warm – and prevent the radiator from freezing. Windows cracked a bit; the cab cooled off quick. Re-start the engine. Repeat as necessary. Probably every 15 minutes to half-hour.
Anti-freeze to 20 below is not much good when it gets far below that. 35 below is what I later heard. Cardboard on the radiator time.
I have this thing for trains. Unreasonable, unexplainable, but there it is.
So along about not-quite dawn – gave up on sleep, better to have the engine running and wheels turning anyway – I wandered around the RR yard in Goodland and vicinity waiting for the gates on I-70 to be opened. The storm has passed, the temperatures dropped, and it was looking to be a glorious sunny day (and it turned out to be).
The RR left the engines running all night. Wonder why? …
Someplace in the vicinity, I took this photo. I look at it now – maybe 30 years later – and I still feel the cold. Maybe that’s just me and my memories. That stillness of bitter cold, freeze your lungs cold, squeaky snow like fingernails-on-a-blackboard cold, what-the-hell-are-you-doing-out-in-this cold. And I’m out and about taking photos instead of in some warm local breakfast joint, stuffing myself with coffee, eggs, bacon, biscuits-and-gravy.
So this being the first of March, expecting unseasonable temperatures of near 60 today here in the Idaho foothills, and winter perhaps almost over – not that it really got started this year other than a week of pogonip in December and a few inches snow for the week after Groundhog Day – I though it was time to share this picture of what I didn’t experience this year.
I enjoy the memory; I don’t need to enjoy the experience anymore.
I Messed Up
Nothing particularly serious but I injured myself in a medical accident and it’s causing a bit of distraction in the form of not-pleasant pain – sufficient that I’ve been prescribed narcotics – which I don’t care for and dislike … but not as much as I dislike the level 8 and 9 pain.
I don’t see the attraction to take enough of these things to get addicted but then I react to medication differently than most folks it seems.
Anyway, the imps that guide my writing are taking a break – the narcotics affect them more than me – so pictures as headers it is until the imps get off their lazy, doped-up asses and get back to providing me inspiration or desperation.
Janissary
Code blue (wake me when it’s over)…
Another fine guest post from Jean. Be sure to check out her site, “Pondering“. Musical addition by yours truly.
for a long time
I stopped.
flat disappeared.
and when you
are not
there is nowhere
to go.
so you stay
where you’re not
and never wake up.
’til a day comes
that jars you
and the wounds
start to bleed.
then you get up
and walk
through the door
into daylight
and you see that
the road to salvation
is waiting
right where it’s ever been the whole time
that you thought
you were not.
blue skies
smilin’ at me
nothin’ but
blue skies
do I see.
if I were
any happier
I’d have to
wear a bib.
Rob Schneider – Blue Skies For Everyone
Cathedral Gorge
Thought For The Day
I forget who phrased this thought in this manner but it stuck with me:
“Being a professional is doing all the things you love doing at times when you don’t feel like doing them“
Tunes For Tuesday – Tones & I “Dance Monkey”
A sample of some obscure – and some maybe not obscure – tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.
Today’s selection: Tones & I – Dance Monkey
This one’s not so obscure. Released in 2019 by an Australian singer, Toni Watson; spent 24 weeks at #1 in Australia
The story of the 1964 F100
This was originally intended to be a reply to ghostsniper but I thought it made a good post. Of course, I like old trucks – that may have been an influence on me … DT 🙂
Back around the turn of the century a retired couple moved to a retirement community. Mr. Miller had a 1964 Ford F100 four wheel drive pickup that he was very fond of. He had driven it from Montana to Oregon and used in his logging business and to go hunting and fishing in the Coast Range. He was a veteran and survivor of Pearl Harbor on the USS Oklahoma and a devout Catholic. The residents of the retirement community were not really happy about a beat up old Ford parked along the street and tried to get him to sell it. My brother herd about it and went to see about buying the truck but he wanted quite a bit of money for it.
After a while Mr. Miller passed away and his widow offered the truck to my brother for $500 and he bought it. We used it on the farm for a couple of years, but it had some problems and so it was parked beside the barn, where it sat for almost 20 years. In the winter of 2023 my youngest son decided to see if he could get it going again. Cleaned out the fuel tank, replaced the points and carburetor and had it running. New brakes and rebuilt the front axle and now we can drive it again. It’s pretty rough looking with a brush painted dark blue paint over the original turquoise cab and traces of construction yellow and rusted out bed, but the 292 V8 runs like a top and it’s a lot of fun to drive around the farm.
Almost In Bloom
