It's Plane To Sea, for us

We had traveled some distance in Ohio when it dawned on me, while looking at the road atlas, the significance Ohio and the surrounding region had for me growing up. As many of you know, my family was in the logging business in Washington State. Many of the heavy equipment used in the logging and mining industries had brand names like Lima, Bucyrus Erie, Manitowoc, Marion and so forth. Just names, right? Not exactly...I discovered these were names of towns and cities in Ohio. I called my Dad and told him of my "discovery," and he filled in the blanks for me. I didn't know that the Ohio valley and surrounding areas were where these machines were made. And the steel mills...didn't know those were in Ohio, either. I thought that the country's only steel mills were located in Pennsylvania. Well, gee, what a "coinkydink" (coincidence)...that's just down the road from Ohio. Remember the song by Gordon Lightfoot..."The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"? Well, as Paul Harvey would say: here's the rest of the story...the Edmund Fitzgerald, as with many similar ships, hauled the iron ore to the region for making steel at the mills. Of course, not only the heavy machinery was produced here in this region, but its always been the hub of the automobile industry. Sadly, like the logging and lumber mill industries, many of the production plants for the heavy equipment and automobiles have been closed or relocated also. 

 Here's a youtube link produced by josephhulton as a tribute to the Edmund Fitzgerald and its crew:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7aw

Now that I've bored you with 20th century information, I will head into the next blog.

Connie and Jim Priebe

We had left our friends, Herb and Karen Seil, then headed to Jim and Connie Priebe's. They own the sailboat "Plane to Sea" which we traveled on with them to St. Maarten last Christmas. Jim has been in aviation for all of his life, flying and restoring aircraft. He and Connie were in the final stages of refurbishing a Cessna 172 at their home when we arrived. Yep, at home...in the new shop designed for such fun...in their backyard. The only thing missing is the runway. But wait, what about using the county road that passes in front of their home? It has a long straight-stretch...with very few obstructions...They sure thought of great idea, in our opinion. We concurred, since in Montana, roads are used as runways all of the time (reasonably and prudently, of course). Jim and Connie had put a lot of thought into the concept and made the plans for it, so we thought it was pretty neat we were able to share in the fun.

Back and Forth...

Foot by Foot

Around trees and fence posts

We made it to the end of the driveway

Once on the road, it's hard to believe how long
the wingspan is

Up, Up and Away

Ummm...no Mr. Sheriff, sir. Don't know anything
about a plane using the road as a runway...
No...I think he was just making a low pass...

He didn't believe us, and once he figured out who was really in charge of the
people still left on the ground, he headed to the driveway to ask questions of Connie and where the plane exactly came from. She took the high road and explained they needed to get the plane airborne and over to the local airport...you can't just tear it apart and haul it on a trailer. So the sheriff headed to the local airport to question Jim and his sanity.

We headed over there ourselves, meeting up with Jim and the sheriff having a jovial conversation. The sheriff suggested that a phone call, next time, would smooth all future ruffled feathers.

Our time with Jim and Connie was so fun and we look forward to seeing them back down in the islands. Incidently, you may have noticed that Connie and I weren't in most of the pics...we were supervising the workers!