A Little Catching Up

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It has been reasonably quiet around here lately; well, quiet in terms of nothing interesting to report.  So, here is a little update on the not-worth-a-whole-post happenings.

December 31st; I came home from running errands to find a herd of deer relaxing in our "yard".  About six of them got up and moved away but these two were pretty committed to staying put just outside our door.

January 5th; We got a good Montana snow!  Montana has a completely different attitude toward snow from what we were used to in Vermont.  In Vermont, the municipalities would run the snow plows until there was no snow left on the road and many towns would haul snow away to clear parking areas.

In Montana, it is assumed that you drive a suitable vehicle for the environment and have the sense to put on good snow tires.  Chains are an option here as well as studded tires.  Meanwhile, it's every driver for themselves.  The state will make sure that at least one lane (each direction) of the interstate is cleared and towns will plow the main roads and particularly dangerous spots (and some of the larger side roads...eventually), but most roads are just left for drivers to pack down with their vehicles.  And if the a local bank plows out their drive-through lanes and leaves snow on the road...just drive through it.

January 10th; we had a brilliant red sunrise to get the day started.

January 10th; I went to Billings to take care of some business.  Just as few miles before reaching the Livingston exit to go home, the traffic ground to a stop.

Very quickly it backed up behind me as far as I could see. 
In the region between Bozeman and Billings (this is the area of Montana I know best), extremely high winds can cause travel to be treacherous particularly for large shipping trucks.  When the wind gets high like this, they close sections of the interstate to route traffic onto smaller more protected roads.  This process causes headaches for travelers.
But these inconveniences are much easier to deal with than the potential risks of cars and trucks being blown off the road.

To see what I was doing in Billings you can read the next post.

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