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Greetings, Chief
Nation! Strap yourselves in for this edition's ride...and what a ride
it was!
After some pinballing
around on I-5 for a few days, between mid-Oregon and (mercifully) just
south of Seattle, The Chief (tm) had had more than enough of all the
traffic up there in the Pacific NW.
We sometimes see the
hiring
invitations on the over-the-road trailers which say, "No East Coast
Runs", but it sez here that the SEA area is no less terrible when it
comes to road congestion, and this is despite all the newer, expanded
highways that criss-cross the region. And FWIW, the term "SEA area"
realistically encompasses about seven hundred thousand square miles, at
least if measured by the amount of traffic one encounters at any time
of the day even nowhere near the
city itself. When it takes an hour to go twenty miles at
mid-day, out near Everett, that is bad news for those
unfortunates doomed to spend their "lives" around there.
Anyway, it was
fortunate to receive the next assignment: hauling 44K lbs. of garbanzo
beans out to Wisconsin. Getting out of the Portland area was tricky
because historically bad wildfires in the Columbia Gorge had closed
I-84, a major east-west route, practically right at the edge of the
city. After extricating from the mess and getting up into eastern WA,
we were blessed with haze-free blue skies and then a beautiful run
through the skinny upper part of Idaho, past Coeur d'Alene Lake. The
highway climbs, dips and twists as it skirts the lake, so sightseeing
was done in roughly half-second increments, but even this was enough to
reveal beautiful scenery.
FWIW the "highway" in
question happens to be I-90 -- which, as those unfortunates doomed to
spend their "lives" in Massachusetts know, of course heads all the way
east. But it sure doesn't look like the Mass Pike out here! And it
climbs up to 4,700 ft. at Lookout Pass, where it crosses into Montana.
MONTANA! Your boy The Chief (tm) had never been to Montana before! So
strike it off the list. As the road descended, we drove through narrow
rock-faced chasms with rivers and streams running right alongside.
Turning off the main drag, more of the same followed, and the
possibility arose of parking next to the river for the night; boy, how
many stars one would be able to see out here, with essentially zero
light pollution!
But there were a few
more driving hours left, so we soldiered on. And then we turned and
climbed up out of the river valley, over a small mountain ridge...
...and started to see
lots of haze. In fact, Glacier National Park had been having a very bad
time with wildfires, to the extent that the famous "Going To The Sun
Road" was forced to close. The town of Kalispell, just nearby, had been
seeing the effects for days by then. That town was somewhat less
lively, less rustic than expected, but there was still an excellent
dinner enjoyed at a place called Hops (or "Hop's", it could be.)
On the way out, we
got to drive right alongside the southern boundary of the National
Park. We went through the little towns that serve tourists there;
"Hungry Horse", named after the dam a few miles away, especially showed
promise as a quirky, down-to-earth place to visit, kinda
what
Kalispell had been expected to be. And there were several even smaller
places along
the way. Already at about the 4K-ft. elevation level, the road itself
had only a handful of challenging segments, and while not
cutting through the park itself, still was a pretty ride. Emerging on
the east side of the park, you start to hit the flatter (though not
perfectly flat) parts of the state.
Further to the east,
we dove down off a tall ridge into the city of Billings. With a
population of 100K, it is MT's largest city. And situated where it is
currently still handling coal shipments and oil from the region's
fracking and shale operations, it happens to be enjoying economic and
population growth; Montana State University is there and the medical
fields are thriving. As a result, the downtown area has not suffered
the malaise that we've seen some other smaller cities endure, as there
seemed to be a decent presence of retail (mostly local) and dining
options along with a few state- and national-level corporate offices.
Pretty darned OK, as these things go, and "City Brew Cafe" whipped up
just about the best mocha in recent memory.
Funny thing about the
coal handling is that the railroad runs through one side of downtown,
only two blocks from the center, and so a super-long coal train blocked
traffic for several minutes while it rumbled past. A picture taken
using a zoom setting, which often serves to flatten the image, would
make it seem like the thing was right *in* downtown, but in this case
it would not be an illusion! And some of the nearby buildings, which in
the past had been railroad hotels, have been resurrected for that same
use in the near-"boutique" fashion.
The un-funny thing
about the tracks is that they bisected the area between the trucking
terminal and the highway exit; the in-cab GPS routed us down a street
with a sign indicating only a 13'8" clearance beneath a trestle! Now,
the truck and trailer are 13'6" high, which means there should reliably
be all of TWO INCHES to work with while passing underneath...but then
we are warned that, at highway speeds anyway, sometimes the combination
will run a litttle TALLER because the air suspension components will
typically be at their fullest level. Of course we were nowhere near
highway speeds at this pernt, but we still held our breath and prayed not to hear any scraping (or
worse) as we edged our way through...and mercifully we did not...I wish
I could have seen just how tight it
was!
Leaving MT and
heading east, we hit another brand-new state for The Chief (tm), North
Dakota! We sometimes hear how boring the highway slog can be through
ND, but troof is, there was constant, and occasionally brutal rain for
almost ten solid hours, so
sightseeing was impossible anyway unless the sight to see was, say, no
more than fifty feet away. And let us not dwell on how frightening it
is, upon the occasion to hit the brakes for the first time in three
hours, only to discover that there is zero stopping power until they
dry out, which can be literally hundreds of feet later...
On the lighter side,
did you know that there are handicapped truck parking spaces at some of the
truck stops? Yep, a blue painted box and lines...except that the lines
are ninety feet long.
Or how about seeing,
for the first time ever, the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, in full flight
on the highway somewhere in WI?
Or looking at your
guidebook to see where the next closest truck stop is...and you can't
find the listing for that particular Interstate...because you are
looking at the pages for an entirely different state from the one you
are actually in?
Or how about waking
up in the morning, stepping outside of your
truck, and immediately being hit with an awful, foul smell? And you
think, well, sure, some of your sloppier drivers do simply dump out the
contents of
their coffee mugs, or other drinks, or food containers the moment they
get parked...and maybe some of them also realize that they, uh, don't
have time to make it to the baffroom...but how did you not notice the
stench when you got there?
And then you realize why: because while you were sleeping, the truck
next to you pulled out and a different one came in. And it is a
livestock truck with a full load of pigs riding in the trailer! YIKES!
All for now, gang,
all for now!
-- Sincerely,
The Chief (tm)
a.k.a.
The Pacific Standard (tm)
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