Random Nuclear Strikes

I always love visiting The Wife’s Uncle’s place when we’re out in MT because it is like a candy store.

With really expensive candy.

The guy has ten acres with about the same number of outbuildings full of machinery, from old John Deere tractors to some very cherry autos.

Like this, his current restoration project: A 1947 Ford 2 door

His current completed projects include this 1954 Ford sedan

The paint may look stock, but there are a set of pinstripes in the dark green color that follow the color, running the length of the body on either side.

And then there is his previous completion: A 1949 Mercury 2 door

All done up to period correct standards, including the four-inch drop in the rear and the Smitty Glass Pack mufflers on the 255ci flathead.

He also has two sets of twins: This pair of 1954 Chevys

He says that these have been around his garage for a long time and deserve to be the next project after the 47.

And this pair of Model A’s. This 1927 that he has had since high school, and a 1928 that I couldn’t fit into the shot.

I have certain acquaintances that I cannot show this picture to, as they would be like Gollum after the ring trying to find out who this uncle is and where he lives so that they can pester him with cash.

But by far, my favorite of the whole bunch was this 1949 Mercury 4 door

Runs and drives. Complete as from the factory. The paint and the interior are a bit worn, but are still in very good shape for their age. And because it is a luxury FoMoCo product, it has factory rear suicide doors. Always a deal sealer for me.

If I had the room to work on it and wasn’t in the middle of working with The Wife’s 1963 Galaxie Country Sedan wagon, I would have been pestering him with money. Other than upgrade the brakes to make it a little safer to drive, and if it was possible to a swap in an OHV mill without ruining the engine compartment, I’d do nothing to it.

Oh, and if you look behind the Merc, you’ll see sticking out from under the tarp a 1948 Buick Roadmaster with the Dynaflow and the infamous Straight 8 that he completed a couple years back.

Sorry for the blurriness of the photo. My hands were shaking a bit.

For about two months before we went on vacation, The Wife had been pointing out that she was building up credit at our friend’s tattoo shop, Majenta’s Diamond Tattoo in Renton, WA.

She kept telling me to think of what I wanted to get done, since it has been more than a couple years since I’ve gone under the needle, and my idea pile has been growing. My buying of firearms, ammo and Jeep parts was not going to stop her from getting some of the ideas I’d had through the duration of my absence in the Electric Pink chair etched on.

So yesterday afternoon we arrived ready for our five hour block of Majenta’s time, ideas in hand. I went first, getting some test shading done to a long ago done forearm sleeve that I’ve been wanting to change a bit. Then I got a couple new small ones done. Then it was The Wife’s turn to nearly complete the sleeve work on her left arm.

All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

Here are two my my new ones. Please excuse the pasty skin tone.

I think you’ll like this one. The outside lines are perfectly symmetrical, but it is hard to keep them that way while photographing them.

It is about four inches tall and slightly off-center from the actual part of the shoulder where the rifle but goes because of the crease between my arm and chest.

I had originally designed this to fit inside the palm of my right hand. However, I have to back to work on Monday, so it went on the right shoulder instead.

And I’ve always wanted to get this next one, I just never knew where. But now that the first one I ever got (a very crappy one, if I do say so myself) long, long ago in a city far, far away has faded enough, I had this one put over part of it.

Motorhead fanatics will know where that one came from.

I took a couple of smaller road trips while on my big road trip.

One of the places visited was Great Falls, MT

This was taken near St. Peter’s Mission and Cascade, MT

The Missouri River is flowing just over that first hill.

We also visited Virginia City, MT, which is just northwest of Yellowstone National Park.

That is the Madison Valley as you come over the hill from Virginia City, heading into Ennis, MT.

Now, this is the problem when driving around in scenic country such as Montana is: Unless your sole mission is to take pictures of scenery, and you can travel very slowly, you cannot get all the pictures you want.

For instance, when The Wife and I left Trib’s Place, we took Hwy 12 from Orofino, ID, through the Clearwater River valley and over Lolo, all the way to Helena, MT.

Don’t be mad at me, but we were so wowed by the scenery that not a single photograph was taken.

We were constantly pointing out gorgeous scenery to one another, but stopping to take a photo of even just ten percent of them would have added hours to our travel time. I was constantly getting passed because I was always driving 10mph under the speed limit gawking.

Really, if you get the opportunity to tour this portion of America, don’t let it pass you by.

Also, for any sport tourers, either on two-wheel or four wheel vehicles, the lower Lolo Pass on the Idaho side that is maintained by the USFS rates a 9.5 out of 10 for overall excellence, rivaling anything Europe’s Alpine Mountains have to offer. In fact, I saw a pair of BMW Z4 M Series Roadsters and a pair of M6 Convertibles bustling westward on my way over the pass.

Downtown Deer.

Most of the locals will disagree with me on this one, and I think that I would as well if I was actually living there, but take a look at these two pics

Helena, MT has a horrendous deer problem. Both of those photos were taken at The Wife’s sister’s house while I was out snapping photos of the cars shown today and yesterday.

There are somewhere between 300-400 deer living in or near the residential neighborhoods in the southwest part of the city. Good luck keeping a flower bed of vegetable garden, even in a fenced yard.

While this is Montana, Helena is the state capital, and liberal “No shooting cute, Bambi-like animals in your yard” laws prohibit folks from offing these rose munching antlered rodents when they stand in your yard and eat the apples off your tree.

Hell, even when they chase your dog and/or children, you have to call the police.

The city paid a “consultant” $50K to come out, study the problem, and tell the city executives “Well, you’re going to have to have them shot.”

The city execs, apparently horrified at the idea, paid the state fish & game department another $50K to try and find a way to trap and relocate them. Because transporting wild animals is a bitch, the state fish & game people handed them a plan and a proposed bill that caused Olestra-like leakage in their shorts.

Finally, after spending a year and $100,000 of the citizen’s money to solve a problem that could have been solved by a one-day handgun only/shotgun only hunt, which would have taken care of the problem in a week and also actually generated revenue, the city and the state fish and game folks are going to cull 50 of the animals.

Oh sure, this will still leave 250-350 of the animals roaming the city, but at least “The Professionals” looked into the problem with tender-loving care. We’ll see if they’re smart enough to hand the venison out to those who need it and not just let the carcases rot.
Let me just say that I kept my Ruger Single-Six quite handy while out at garage sales with The Wife and her Mother.

Yesterday I showed you the 1960 Buick Electra project belonging to The Wife’s sister and her husband.

While it was their first Buick, it isn’t their only one.

This is the interior of their 1962 Buick Special convertible

And the interior of the trunk

They’re still putting the finishing touches

And getting the 215ci V8 ready to run

While they were waiting for the rebuild on the 215, they added a special, finishing touch to the hood

Btw, in the upper left hand corner of that photo, you’ll see not only a complete 327 they have sitting around for an as yet unknown project, but the 425 Buick nailhead for the Electra.

Tomorrow, we’ll venture into the shop of The Wife’s Uncle.

The Wife’s mother is an avid garage sale attendee and offered me up the newspaper ads to go through and see if there were any I wanted to stop by.

There were.

After just a few minutes of scanning I found 5 garage sales whose ads prominently featured firearms and/or sporting goods.

You’ll never get that in either of the Seattle papers.

One of them was obviously a gun show seller who didn’t have a show to go to that weekend and opened up shop in his friend’s garage. If I could have taken a picture without having the guy look at me sideways, I would have.

I counted over 40 firearms, both long guns and handguns, eight huge peg boards with all kind of accessories, from various mags to hunting gear, as well as a 6×8 fully enclosed trailer whose floor was covered in boxes of ammo of various calibers.

If you bought 10 boxes of ammo there was a 25% discount. So I bought eight boxes of some surplus $4 a box Spanish .38Special which we shot most of the following day so that I could get the last two boxes of 230gr .45ACP Federal Hydra-Shoks at a price I haven’t seen anywhere since 1998.

The guy behind me in line had a 24x18x12 produce box full of shotgun ammo. I felt so bad about seeing him lugging it around that I offered to help him to his car with it.

And that is one of the things I enjoyed about my visit to Montana.