Ok, yesterday, August 12 I'm standing in this glass house at 8944 feet above mean sea level minding my own business and trying to conjure up some nonexistent smokes to justify my existence as a volunteer fire lookout.
I look up from my logbook.
A guy waves at me from an F-15 Strike Eagle, flying at my elevation at whatever classified faster-than-hell speed F-15s fly, heading right for my outhouse, which is 150 vertical feet and maybe 300 feet horizontal below the lookout, the only place they could find enough dirt in which to dig a hole.
Obviously the jet jockey was after my outhouse, not me in my glorious glass 1920s technology L-4 Cab.
Either that, or he thinks I'm IN the outhouse.
Dang, and my Pard just reshingled the roof of the world's highest throne too. And I laboriously packed all the leftover and old shingles up to the lookout to use as kindling, all for nothing except the aerobic exercise and the chance to see a missile strike on the world's highest throne.
Two seconds later the F-15 looked no bigger than a tiny toy plane screaming down into Shovel Creek, the creek immediately west of me.
He's going to crash! He's below Shovel Ridge! He'll never climb out of it.
I'll get my first smoke.
In my next heartbeat the plane climbs up and out of Shovel Creek and over the ridge about a hundred feet off the ground, and disappears into the west.
I call Hamilton: "Ain't that a violation of the Wilderness Act?" I ask. I thought no airplanes were allowed. (I'm right, too, unless there is an exemption for F-15s. I think the Air Force just feigns ignorance: that they know nothing about any planes flying low over wilderness.)
"Happens all the time," Hamilton says. "This is a military aircraft corridor."
"Well, I object. It's supposed to be quiet out here in the wilderness."
Secretly, I recall the sheepherder who put a .30-30 round into an F-4 for scaring his sheep some years back. "Nice shot." I tell myself.
"Salmon Mountain, here comes another one!" Hell's Half Acre lookout warns. "Here comes two more!"
I look intently, hearing thunderous noise, but see no jets.
"I guess they're scared of me, 'cause I called Hamilton on that one," I tell Hell's Half. Fat chance.
Thank God these guys are flying for our side. I never dreamed they could do such things. It's like they were glued to the ground at faster-than-hell miles per hour.
Two hours later, Bob comes to relieve me. I have been on the mountain since Friday, and I'm not ready to go. But my time is up.
I shake hands with him, shoulder my pack, walk down past the target/outhouse, and walk the mile and a half down to my truck. Then I drive the long bumpy road out to Nez Perce Pass, and down into Montana, and from there home.
My wife's car died Saturday, my first full day on the mountain. Timing chain broke. That's why I drove straight home, arriving home about midnight, instead of lingering like I wanted to.
Our son, who knows about such things, says the valves might be impaling the pistons or maybe the rods got a kink or two. It's probably not worth fixing the 15 year-old clunker with leather seats that's a nice car but needs the air conditioning fixed, not to mention the timing belt and blown engine.
I think about applying for "Cash for Clunkers," an Obama program that converts perfectly functional vehicles getting 18 mpg or less into scrap metal and gives borrowed Chinese money to people so they can buy a new Korean-made car that gets MORE than 18 mpg.
Here's how it works, as explained by our son, who knows about such things:
You take your clunker getting 17.5 mpg to the dealership and apply for Cash for Clunkers. You apply for credit, and on tentative approval they take your clunker, drain the crank case, pour sand into the carburetor, and redline the tachometer. If they're lucky, no pistons blow out through the engine block and kill them while they're doing this.
After the clunker is thoroughly converted to scrap metal, you go over to the Kia branch of the dealership and pick up your new car that gets 20.1 mpg, and your up-to-$4500 Obamamoney.
Provided, that is, your credit report comes back clean and you can actually get the financing.
If not, too bad.
The dealers have smartened up and made you sign a waiver exonerating them if your credit comes back bad. Because they don't like paying the $4500 that Obama would have borrowed from the Chinese on your behalf, provided your credit comes back good. The dealers ate a few failed rebates and didn't like it, therefore the waiver.
The dealers say deals are piling up on their desks, and pray that the Obamamoney will hold out until they consummate. Otherwise, those deals will go bye-bye and they'll have a slew of unhappy customers.
One dealer had 68 deals lined up when the first slug of money dried up. Two were for American-made cars. The others were Korean. Some nice little Ford Ranger pickups and other cars with half the mileage on my wife's car were destroyed to make room for them. Obama approved round two.
Back to my wife's broken timing chain: A perfect opportunity! I take the car in, get my Obamamoney and my car, and the government does not even have to pay to destroy the car because it's already scrap for all practical purposes.
Oh no, that will never work. The car has to drive forward and backward under its own power. THEN they destroy it, at taxpayer expense.
So my options are: 1) Pay $1250 to repair the car and let Obama pour sand in the engine to destroy it so I can get Obamamoney. 2) Let the dealer scrap it for me on a trade in. and 3) donate the car to a charity we know of that lets homeless men work on cars to learn a trade, and get a nice tax deduction out of it.
Which option do you think I will choose?
I've been gone for a few weeks and have stories to tell.
I flew on a plane just like Sentimental Journey, paying $350 for a 20 minute ride. It was worth every penny. The plane I flew on was named Nine Oh Nine.
Later. |
