OT: Every Once and a While..Life Intrudes

[RockyMTblue2]

So after about 10 AM today life got wacky here in the Southwestern part of Montana I call home. After 2 plus days of gusty winds out of the west we had wind plus the very strong smell of smoke and huge plumes of same. 1 1/2 hours later mandatory evacuation. Still under that edict. But all sorts of vehicles are drifting through my neighborhood without any checks. So guess where I am now? Guess what I have with me, with two more clips by my side. Don't order me out of my home without closing the front door when I left!

 

[Huskies Rule]

Man, I envy you. A long long time ago I frequented Seattle a lot on business, and on one of my get-the-hell-out-of-town breaks I drove to Bozeman and from there to the Grinnell Trail in Glacier. It was beyond magnificent. Everything in Montana was just awe-inspiring and breathtaking- literally. For this Jersey boy, it was spectacularly surreal. If I could have abandoned my family back East, I would have stayed there forever. To this day, I've never experienced any place more drop-dead beautiful. Living on the beach is my consolation- it's sooo different, but special,too, in its own very Un-Montana way.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Man, I envy you. A long long time ago I frequented Seattle a lot on business, and on one of my get-the-hell-out-of-town breaks I drove to Bozeman and from there to the Grinnell Trail in Glacier. It was beyond magnificent. Everything in Montana was just awe-inspiring and breathtaking- literally. For this Jersey boy, it was spectacularly surreal. If I could have abandoned my family back East, I would have stayed there forever. To this day, I've never experienced any place more drop-dead beautiful. Living on the beach is my consolation- it's sooo different, but special,too, in its own very Un-Montana way.

Every day I wake up and the magnificent beauty of this place smacks me in the face and I take it for granted. Still. what I miss is walking on the beach and having the last gasps of the wave tickle my toes!

 

[AllAmerRedHeads]

Awesome part of the country. lived in Idaho for a couple of years and worked in the Nezperce National Forest.

While I walk the beach on occasion, your area is one of the most special places I ever have been and was blessed to call it home for a couple of years.

I have read where I lived had more than its share of Forest Fires this year. My thoughts to everyone out there. It was the hardest job I ever had in my life, yet the one i enjoyed the most.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Fire burned a 1 x 6 mile swath. Wind gusts to 50 mph! Helicopters with buckets did amazing work. Drained 2 fire ponds here on the ranch and ended up pulling water out of the Gallatin River. Heroic pilots. Still not totally contained, but we got the all clear to go home at 11:30 last night. Fire never got close to our house, but nearly claimed 3 houses to our north. Helos stopped it 20, 10, and 6 feet from those houses. Two are totally surrounded by a sea of blackened terrain.

 

[vtcwbuff]

" . . .ended up pulling water out of the Gallatin River. "

I hope they didn't pull too many of those fine Gallatin trout along with the water.

I had a friend in high school that I introduced to fly fishing for brook trout in VT beaver ponds. He became addicted. When we graduated he headed to Montana "for the summer" and never came back home. I visited him a couple of years later and we had a fine time fishing the Gallatin and the Madison. We've since lost touch but the last I knew he was still guiding in Montana.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

There are few Montanans who don't enjoy the great outdoors in multiple ways and a fair number of young people come here to college and never leave. There are trade offs. Good jobs are hard to find, but you can thrive with the right kind of self-employment. Meanwhile, darn fire this morning was 0% contained with 9000 acres up in smoke. I have a ring side seat on 4 choppers with buckets shuttling ceaselessly between water sources and the fire.