Last week I drove my wife to and from Billings MT for a work meeting (don't ask).
WY has some of the more awesome views in our country, and I was looking forward to enjoying the views and listening to lots of rock and roll. Nothing like listening to Led Zep Ramble On while driving 90 along a two lane highway enjoying amazing views and praying not to hit wildlife.
And I got the opportunity to get away from my kids. Wooooooo Hooooooo.
In the 300+ miles I drove in WY guess what I didn't see. Mountains. Not a single one. Visibility was limited to less than a mile and was often a lot less than that. The air tasted like shit and looked like it too. Across all of WY and MT.
Something else I didn't see much of was gas stations. When you are driving out west and you got less than 150 miles of range left on your car I would advise starting to look for a gas station. Bizarrely for this midwest-east coast guy there were almost no gas stations along interstate 25. Weird right? We got off the highway to get gas at Midwest WY (pop 390) where the gas station was 7 miles off the highway. If you got an electric car; WY and MT are not for you.
Before we got off the highway we passed a fire in the brush next to the highway. A single police cruiser was blocking the lane closer to the fire that was licking the highway, but at that point I could still drive north. After a quick fill up in Midwest (not a mask in sight) the digital billboard by the entrance to I25 indicated the road to the South was closed due to the fire we drove through.
Bingo.
The upside to wildfires everywhere is when they close the highway behind you and all 8 emergency responders within 150 miles are trying to put the fire out, the speed limit becomes whatever you like. While I didn't get a picture of my spedo because my knuckles were white and the wife asleep, I can say I think the top speed of my Tahoe is faster than 113 MPH that Chevy claims (maybe a dry hot tail wind and a downhill section helped). Their ya have it. One bonus to the west being on fire.
But aside from that, I am really not seeing any other benefits. I can't understand why anyone in the western states would vote for anyone who doesn't have an environmental plan. I didn't exercise or do anything outside in Billings because breathing was dangerous. WY ranchers are going to watch their cattle burn, or at a minimum starve to death as the prairie burns. Eventually even the idiots will stop recreating outside as everyone develops asthma. And what is the point of having a view if you can't see it. You couldn't have a more in your face reason to say climate change is real, and something needs to be done before the back 40 burns.
Back home no evidence of a party ( a little disappointed in the boy) but we did find some Jul pods and puff bars. Nothing like getting a head start on respiratory issues before the entire country is covered in smoke.
PS Billings---I don't see any appeal. Kinda looked like a love child of Cleveland and Detroit without the lakes.
Beautiful Billings
