Havre road trip

No post yesterday... I was on the road.   Donna's daughter had to return to work on Monday.  Her husband wanted to stay here and spend a few days fishing with friends.  So Donna and her daughter hatched a plan for Donna to drive her daughter home and leave the vehicle here for the husband to drive home later.  Otherwise he would have had to catch a train home.

But they needed one more thing to make their plan work.  Donna had a doctor appointment early Monday morning so she needed to be back home by then.   The distance was over 250 miles...  one way.  Over 500 miles round trip.  The trip would take over 4 hours each way.  And the time was after 5 pm.  So she asked if I would go with them and help drive back.  

A 500 mile 8 hour round trip over night.  Why not?

Besides I can talk.   And talk.  And that would make the time go faster.  For Donna's daughter I did make the time go faster.  I talked so much she fell asleep while I was talking. 

I'm not sure when we left.  After 6 pm I think.   We arrived at 10:37 pm.   After a quick tour of the daughter's house Donna and I left to return at 11:07 pm.   The "Highline" highway (U.S. 2) doesn't have much traffic, and certainly very little traffic in the Winter and Spring.  We saw very few cars on our drive.  The area is lightly populated so there weren't many lights visible during our drive other than when we passed through the occasional small town.  Surprisingly Browning, MT looks much bigger lit up at night than during the day.  Other structures lit up at night were the grain elevators along the railroad track.  And lastly I can not help mention the vast field of blinking red lights atop the numerous wind towers near Cutbank, MT.

The Highline highway mostly parallels the railroad.  While rail traffic is down we did met over a half dozen trains - almost as many cars on the highway that we met.

Donna can get car sick.  She first felt queasy when we dropped into Shelby, MT.   But the feeling passed on the straight stretch of road between Shelby and Cutbank.  Then the drop west of Cutbank brought it back again.   The mostly straight road between Cutbank and Browning made her feel better.

The problem is that west of Browning we entered the mountains.  The road rose and dropped and twisted and turned.   Usually when Donna drives she is fine.  Not this time.  At Marias Pass I had to take back over driving.

Donna had it bad.  She said it was the worst she ever felt.  I had to drive 40 mph and under.  We stopped numerous times so she could get out of the car and walk a bit and get fresh air.

It didn't help that we drove along a freight train for a while.  The sight of the locomotives lit up made Donna feel worse.  And not helping was the sound of the train car wheels screeching and squealing constantly as the brakes were applied as the train came off Marias Pass.

With little to no traffic on the straight sections of road prior to the mountains I had made really good time.  Then things slowed down.  I didn't get home until 3:50 am.  Donna was in rough shape.  I spoke with her today and she said after sleeping until the afternoon she felt much better.

I slept late, though I didn't get my full eight hours of sleep.  I woke up to find another calf born earlier Monday morning.

A few photos of Glacier Park mountains as we drove over to Havre.

Creston auction 2016

Spring must be here - it is time for the annual Creston Volunteer Firefighter auction.  This year was the 50th annual auction.   Donna, a Flathead native, has never been to the Creston auction.   Her daughter and son-in-law were here and going to the auction so Donna came along too.   So that meant I needed to be ready to go when the auction started and not my usual "whenever I roll out of bed" time.  9 am is early for me.

Lots of people go to the auction.  I saw a few people I know.  Donna saw lots of people she knows.

Lots of stuff... or junk.. or whatever you want to call it.  Neither Donna or I bought anything.  Her daughter and son-in-law had bought a few items by the time Donna and I left.

There were a few items of interest to me in the farm equipment and vehicle section that will be auctioned off on Sunday.  But I doubt I will go as I don't really need the items and they will probably sell for a bunch of money.

Here are a few interesting items from Saturday's stuff.

The auction started with a fly over by the Two Bear Air rescue helicopters.   They are underwritten by the multi-millionaire from Silicon Valley who spends part of the year in the Flathead Valley.

Hey, Uncle Curt.  Here is another rooster for you.

Where do people get this stuff?!!!

Wouldn't this look great in my from yard?!

Pipe on split corral fence

Here is the post I had written when Blogger quit sending emails.  I wrote this back on March 4 when I was still recovering from my collarbone surgury.


I finally finished my corral fence rebuild.   The last part to do was add a length of pipe on the part of the fence splitting the corral.  That should prevent a cow or Buddy the Bull from pushing hard against back of the fence and popping off the boards.

I tried to estimate the correct height.  Not too high and not too low.

I didn't have enough of one pipe so I had to use two different sizes.  The three sections making up the smaller diameter I was able to screw together.  Not the easiest to do as I needed to use two pipe wrenches and two arms.  I paid attention to not over stress my shoulder.  I expected my shoulder would ache later that evening, but it didn't.  Success.

It also was a challenge to get the pipes up and in place without lifting with one arm, but I did it.

Initially I planned to only hang the wider pipe and wait till another day to do the rest, but things went fairly well and I was able to finish in the same afternoon.

I decided to use screws instead of nails in order to attach the brackets.  This would avoid nails loosening over the years.  The only challenge was screwing screws into the railroad ties.  I used an electric drill to screw the screws but a quarter of the way into the tie the screw head would start to strip.  I had to use a vice-grip to completely screw in the screws.  Even then it was hard and the screws would snap off and I would have to move the bracket.  Then, dud, I realized I should drill a small hole first.  I still had to use a vice-grip to finish the screws - but no more breakage.

I think the cattle will also use the pipes to scratch their heads against.

Small pipe going into a larger pipe.

Small pipe going into a larger pipe.

I couldn't remove the t-connector because it was rusted on.  So I left it.

-

It appears to work

My Blogger email workaround appears to work.  I've been told.

I just learned of another way for you to get my blog's posts.  On each of my blogs, on the right side (scroll down) and just above the Clustrmaps image, you will see a "Follow by email" section.  If you enter your email here Feedburner will send you an email with the posts I added that day to that blog.

If you do decide to use "Follow by email" let me know and I will remove you from the Google Groups email list.  I have no idea who has signed up to "Follow by email".

Work around for Blogger not emailing posts

Hi.   You haven't heard from me in almost a month as I haven't added posts. (Maybe you noticed - maybe you didn't.  )    And why haven't I added posts?      Because Blogger is broken and does not email my new posts - for my blogs and apparently - judging from the help forum - quite a few other blogs.   You'd think Blogger could fix this problem by now is it has been broken almost a month!

I learned of a workaround.  A web site called IFTTT.   And in desperation I am trying it.   The work around is even a bit more complicated since the IFTTT workaround will only send a blog post to a maximum of 5 email ids.  And I have more than 5 email ids I send posts to.   So I reactivated an old Google groups I used to use in order to send multiple emails out before Blogger upped their "email to" function some years ago.  Some of you may remember getting posts this way years ago.

So IFTTT will send to my Google Group which will then send the email to you.  If you don't want to receive emails of my posts, let me know, and I will remove your name from my list.

Hopefully this all works.  If you receive this - it has worked.  And maybe I can get back to blogging my news.