Grumpy Old Bastard

Stump Art is popular in this area. Loose a tree and keep the stump.

Master criminal at work. Took a backhoe from a nearby construction site at 0dark30 and used it to break into a small closed connivance store in Cheyenne.  Didn’t get anything but caught.

I stop here most Saturdays and buy Lottery Tickets. Wyoming doesn’t have state income tax. 50+ years later, I’m still pissed at Colorado for taxing my Army earnings while I was out of the country. Too long to hold a grudge? Fuck you, I’m a Celt.

Our driving hazards are blizzards in the fall and winter, hail, tornados and thunderstorms in the spring and summer, and, in August, Sturgis.

In the past year portable toilets are now in place at the missile sites. Never saw them before. Is it because more females are in the Air Force?  Can’t step behind a bush and drop their drawers?

I take it as a sign President Trump’s policies are working when one of the area’s largest employers is using direct mail seeking workers.

Why the blog title? That is what my daughter-in-law calls me, usually shortened to GOB. Maybe an improvement over the older EFIL (evil father-in-law). Or, she is going for efficiency.

War On Coal

Is the war on coal over under President Trump? The marshalling yard at Gurnsey, WY is active again. Busiest I’ve seen it in the past year and a half.

Deferred Maintenance

Think it is past time for my company to fix this clown car. Perhaps things will change. Our ‘stuperviser’ has quit. No loss, she would be hard pressed to organize a two car funeral. No replacement in sight.

Open Road Joys

Narrow two lane highway, 90° day, following an open 40’ trailer loaded with raw material for an animal byproducts plant. Slight improvement after passing and falling in behind a bullhauler (cattle truck).

Reminder

Message on a highway information sign on I-25 near Wellington, CO.

“301 Traffic Deaths”

“Real People”

“Real Families”

August is usually an interesting month driving on our route. Sturgis traffic. Tourists, thunderstorms and tornadoes.

 August 21^st should be extremely interesting. Our route goes through the solar eclipse totality path. Every motel, RV park, etc. has been reserved for months. Should be three days of clusterfuck traffic between the tourists and the locals who can’t drive worth sour owl shit in the best of times. Fun, fun, fun.

                                           Addendum
 Must enjoy the summer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdhQGeEGFbs

Wild Hawgs and Such

Just when one hazard of the job tapers off, we get another, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

For the past six weeks or so the harvesting crews have been active. A convoy of one or more huge over wide combines on trailers, each followed by a truck pulling the harvester head, some 30’ wide, on another trailer. Several grain haulers, truck and 53’ trailer, followed by one of more RV’s, and miscellaneous vehicles moving from field to field. They can be difficult to pass.

Add the traffic going to and from Sturgis, SD, and the drive can be interesting.

One can admire those who make the trip all the way on motorcycles. Less so those pulling their motorcycles on trailers, and there are probably more of those than the riders. Posers.

A wet winter and spring is a blessing but……… Now a hot summer has arrived and the prairie is drying out just in time for the monsoon season. 

Those thunderstorms produce a narrow, but intense,  path of moisture while the lightning goes everywhere. Lots of work for the fire crews. Lots of flash floods to trap the unwary. The Platte at Gurnsey is at near flood stage and the water muddy.

For larger pictures.  https://www.dropbox.com/sc/5pebjbm9hschwxf/AADLZQsN9w3gzVrUuAzyVSqRa

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/vwbfekssypk50du/AADe4PgSVqbWbrPM5uqM91fJa

NOTE: Having a few problems mastering Dropbox. Please have patience.