Montana notes

Well, I made it back to civilization, at least compared to Montana. No offense, but there're more people in Portland than in the entire state of Montana. The biggest city in Montana (Billings, I think) still doesn't even have 100,000 people. (I sure hope nobody from Chicago or New York reads this and decides to start spouting statistics at me. I'm guessing that New York probably has more people than the whole Northwest. And don't even get me started on Tokyo and Mumbai and whatnot.)

I actually got back a day earlier than I expected. One of our customers declined service, so I could speed things up a little bit. They never said it explicitly, but I got the idea that money was tight, so they decided to forgo calibration this year. I'm not sure that's such a great plan. It's a little like deciding to do oil changes every 10,000 miles to save a few bucks. You'll probably still spend the money later and then some. It worked out for me though, so whatever.

I make a lot of noise, but I actually like travelling to Montana as far as travelling for work goes. People are friendly. The scenery is beautiful. This time around, there was some winter weather, but nothing that slowed me down. Lots of the rivers and lakes were frozen over, which is always cool. Lots of miles though. I think I put on about 2,400 miles in two weeks and stayed in 8 hotels, which is at least 6 too many. I have to give a shout out to La Quinta Inns though. Their rates are usually decent ($49.00 in Missoula for a single king room), the rooms are equipped well enough, and the beds I've had have always been extremely soft, which is a nice change from the ultra-firm plywood beds of the Super 8's and such.

I did have to be amused with Rock Creek, a little town near Missoula. Much of Montana is ranch land. Part of beef ranching is the annual activity of turning bulls into steers. Long story short -- you drive east from Missoula and see billboards for the Rock Creek Testicle Festival. That's all I'm about to say about that. I'll let the fine folks at TestyFesty.com deal with any further details.

On the way home, I happened to catch a radio story about a barge that hit and damaged the locks at the John Day Dam on the Columbia River last Friday. This is somewhat interesting in its own right, but it struck me because I was driving by the dam when I heard to story not too long after it happened. The lock was actually out of service for a few days, but the Corps of Engineers has since installed a temporary gate to restore passage to vital river traffic. The broken gate is floating on a barge until they can figure out how to make a permanent repair.

If this post sounds little random, it's because it's taken me almost a week to write in tiny bursts. I came back home to a sick toddler and last night was the first real good night's sleep this house has seen since I came home. Fun.

In penance for taking so stinking long, here're some interesting/funny videos that are not remotely related to Montana.

Idaho Pics

I've tried to put these pictures up several times, but Blogger acted like it took them and then gave me the stupid red X boxes. Anyway, better late than never. These are a few of the cool things I saw in Idaho. Lots of potatoes, but this stuff too.

This is the Snake River Canyon from just under the bridge to Twin Falls, Idaho. I'm sure it wasn't at this spot, but this is the canyon that Evel Knievel jumped in the 70's. The green spots you can see on either side of the river are golf courses. My co-worker that was with me in September was drooling over these, but he didn't get a chance to play them. The best thing about this canyon is that you don't suspect it until you are right over it. This part of the Snake River Valley is really, REALLY flat, so you are going along a very flat very straight road and then BAM, you're over this crazy deep canyon. Very cool.

This is Shoshone Falls, a couple miles upriver from the picture above. Most of the snow had yet to melt when I was there, so most of the flow was going through that power station on the left. For comparison, that building is several stories high. During the late spring and early summer, all the rocks on the right are covered by the waterfall. The pictures I've seen look very impressive, but I've never been there at the right time.

This was a tree growing out of the lava at Hell's Half Acre, the geological point of interest at the rest stop on the way to Idaho Falls. The lava is pretty thick and is only about 4000 years old, so only really hardy things have grown over it so far. These trees are relatively old, but they apparently have a rough life. I'm sure the cold of winter and the hot dry of summer make for tough living in a place with no flowing water and no wind shelter.

This is the dam at the falls in Idaho Falls. The dam runs about a quarter mile along the length of the river to divert water through a power station at the lower end of the falls. It was very windy on the day I was there and the waves running along the river held together as they went over the falls. The lines you can see above looked like they were running along the face of the dam. It was very cool. I took a video with the camera I had, but it had a hard time focusing, so it isn't very impressive. This picture will have to do.

This is old fish hatchery in Idaho Falls. Now it's part of a park on an island between the river and the power plant diversion canal. It's also a graffiti gallery. I've seen better. Some of the stuff is concrete, but a lot of it is made out of local stone, which in this case is lava rocks. I've only seen construction like that in Hawaii, so it was interesting and unexpected.

There. I had a few other pics that might have made it too, but Blogger gave me enough trouble with these, so they'll have to do.

Where's my freakin' snow?

Once again, the weather forecasters have failed me. Instead of the 4-8 inches of snow promised, we got just a hair under 0 inches. Not just less snow, but not a single flake hit the ground. We did have a few flurries out here, but I'm very disappointed.

It is crazy cold though. And windy as hell.

I took a walk out today, trudging through the bone dry and climbing huge drifts of nothing to check out the feature for which Idaho Falls is named. They looked pretty cool, and again, due to forgetting the camera cable, you don't get to see them. The original falls have been augmented with a concrete wall that stretches about a quarter mile along the length of the river to divert some of the water through a power plant. There's also the remains of an old fish hatchery under one of the bridges that is now a graffiti gallery. And in an odd twist, I found the only non-redneck thing I've seen here in the park along the river. Right next to the falls, in a very picturesque location, was a pagoda-style pillar with some Chinese writing on it. It might have been Japanese, but I don't think so. Anyway, there was no other plaque or anything to tell me what it said or why it was there. Odd.

I'm outta here in the morning. After I finish working in town, I'll head out to Burley, Idaho. Friday, I'll be working there and Heyburn and then hitting the road as far as I can stand and then home Saturday. Finally.