Paging Nathan Collier about Montanna

Mut have been a nice trip. I might take one out there in the Spring if I get a chance.

Oh heck yeah RN's are needed big time! I used to be a macinist a very long time ago but those days are over. I never did Mig welding we had an old Arc welder we used for making jigs but we sent out the tough stuff. We were a Tool & Die shop mainly. But you should be able to find some work uyp that way Welders are usually in demand depending on the industry. I toasted my back, totally shot, I'm still trying to figure out what I can and cannot do. I don't want to sit on my ass for the rest of my life tho. still I need job I can do sitting. No more computer work tho, that's out.

Really? must be awfully flat land for $16K for 100 acres. I'd like land with trees and trails, do some riding on my own property. I've looked at land in various areas in Idaho and Montanna and the Dakotas a lot of it's flat but damn 100 acres of land for $16K I really ought to take a trip up there. I looked at some places on line in Montana and we are talking big prices half a Mil and up for land and houses. I forget which area as I looked at a few. That's why it seemed expensive. But I'll check it out some more. Not many places left to ride in New England, almost all the land has signs saying no trespassing.

I used to be in the computer field did a lot of consulting work with small businesses and non profit orgs. Just got so burnt out on it and everyone was super competitive and the custmoers were beyond cheap. I had to go to court a few times to get paid. Screw that. I want to do some other kind of business. Maybe open a bed and breakfast. Heck anything as long as it isn't a PC. :) Montanna pretty much guarantees some great sled riding if you can hack the cold. I am looking to get out of where I am now. the right opportunity comes along and I'm off like a prom dress. :)

I was interested in that general area. Idaho, Montanna, North/South Dakota. Places where I could shoot, and ride on at least my own property without a ton of hassle. Gotta have work within an hour away tho. Be interested in how you make out. I can't get outthere til the spring unles something realy good comes along but I can easily spend a month out there looking around. Thanks Nathan...

aside from the uhell trouble, it was an awesome trip. i got to see the best and worst countryside that america's highways have to offer. i met some awesome people, and i got to see many of the things that lewis and clarke wrote about. so long as you arent struggling to get over them, the rocky mountains are amazing.

make the time brother.

yeah, its pretty flat but there are enough valleys and ravines to make for great off roading.

if youre in the mountains and tourist type areas youll pay out your nose for prime land anywhere you go.

lol......i hear ya. the wifey has asked me to consider/explore other areas before we head back to montana (being from the cleveland area shes not big on isolated areas) but the more i look, the more i want to get back to montana. ill get there again, if not before the first snowfall it will be as soon as it thaws.

.....but you have to cross the continental divide twice on I15 to get to great falls. in fact, that was the breaking point for us. we took the wifeys jeep on up to see what we were walking away from.

i found the missouri river to be amazing. we must of crossed it a half dozen times between great falls and billings (seems like it anyway).

what about REA?

I'd have felt like driving that Uhaul right through their front window. I've done cross country trips in the past but I've always been in a hurry to get somewhere. Might be nice to go late spring and just take like 3-4 weeks and really see everything. I've only seen the Rocky Montains from a plane. Should be awesome close up. Thankfully my car has a turbo so thin air isn't a problem.

I'll have to checkout more land than I've looked at. I want trees and not just flat farmland tho.

Yeah pretty much I was looking in the mountains. Not the tourist places but the mountains and it was all big $$$$$$$. I need to look in a few different areas as well.

We have a lot of awesome States in the USA. Personally I prefered wooded areas trails and the like but Maine is too expensive now. I've looked in Idaho and the Dakotas, and a little bit in Montanna but So far anything I've really liked has been priced too high. Your wife will adapt once you settle in as long as it's not too remote. Does she offroad and sled with you? If so she'll have a blast.

today i laugh every time i pass a uhell on the road. literally.

theres plenty of that in places like sidney (irrigated valley).

yeah, in hindsight i wish i could have "forced" her to stay to try it, but i couldnt bring myself to force her to do anything. so long as i get a house first this time and we have somewhere to go it will relieve a lot of her stress to just fly her up.

just on the beach

otherwise i dont take her.she gets scared when things get off camber.

Approximately 9/21/03 12:58, Nathan W. Collier uttered for posterity:.

I meant like Marias Pass or the one between Missoula and Swan Lake with the name I just forgot. Great Falls reminds me more of the big butte countries in western Nebraska or mid Wyoming, as you go northwest, Montana becomes extremely Alpine in nature. Sadly, with fewer jobs.

Ya gotta go farther west. Check out the Flathead, Stillwater, Kootenai, Snake, and Columbia rivers. And Flathead Lake which is bigger than Tahoe, and sadly darned near as crowded and polluted, which is why I hang out up near Bitterroot or Talley with the grizzly bears.

REA is good for properties near towns, but if you get too far out, there is no Rural Electrification Association.

Approximately 9/21/03 16:52, Scooby Don't uttered for posterity:

Watch out in western states buying land. You may buy the "land" and find out you didn't get the timber rights, the water rights, or the mining rights, depending on who used to own it. This is allegedly less rare these days, but you would want to make sure as otherwise you couldn't cut down trees on your own property. Also watch out for hunting restrictions...one of the finest ranches I lived on was unfortunately a total game preserve even tho private property. Generally if you totally restrict hunting for 5 years in a row, the fish and game commission can declare the property a game preserve.

The big lots come from the breakup of the old ranches, the big timber lots, and the old mining companies. You shouldn't have any problem getting property with potable water anywhere as you get about past Great Falls going west, and as you get into the alpine areas, usually running and/or standing water of an acre or so isn't that big a deal.

Look for rural acreage. And avoid anything that looks like a developer. I can't believe folks are blowing coupla hundred K for small lots and houses in what used to be a swamp about halfway between Kalispell and Whitefish. Drive another coupla miles north and turn west and you can get several acres near the river for the same price. Ya might have to build your own house while you live in a trailer [or the basement...pretty common].

Hey, if you don't mind sharing those wooded trails with the grizzly bears head for Montana or the Idaho panhandle.

It's good to have a sense of humor. :) Next time You'll have to get something with Balls like a Ryder Truck or anything with a Turbo Diesel. Without the Turbo those trucks run out of wind fast.

I'll scope it out online first. Thanks Nathan.

Oh yeah if you had forced her she would been hell to live with. Forcing women to do anything is like Herding cats. Next time you'll get it to work.

Yeah I've been there sometimes I have looked at hills we *used* to have here and said "No way" We did have one before the cops really busted balls on it and it was a steep hill where the powerlines are and They never used to get hassled. But You'd see trucks roll down that hill like rubber balls. A Roll bar was a must or you'd get killed. I drove up to the base in my 4x4 Full size Chevy Pickup (no roll bar) and said No Effing way! Sure I wimped out but no roll bar, a hill beyond my abilities, no spotters, wrong type of tires, and my much needed daily driver on the line. Fun to watch peopel try and make it tho, and you could drive around and actually watch from the top as well. I prefer trails that you won't roll down for a couple of minutes. :)

next time ill probably let movers handle it, and ill just drive my jeep up.

thats one of the things i really enjoy about my atv. if i lose it (and i do!) i just roll it back over, fire it up, and try again (assuming im still conscious). :-)

It's big $$$$$ to move that way. My sister spent around $6K moving to Florida. That's lot of money. But her company did pay for some of it.

If you were halfway up this particular hill as long as you were able to get out of the way of the Quad you'd probably be ok. I had a 3 wheeler and I was on a fairly steep hill. That's why 2 strokes piss me off so much. I ran out of juice near the top and had to shift to 3rd which bogged it even wide open and when it caught it did a wheelie. I went over backwards. The machine rolled ontop of me as I slid down it rolled onto me again and again all the way down to the bottom. Did I mention I was stupid enough not to have worn a helmet?! I was in pain for a long time. If something like that happened on the powerline hill you'd be dead due to all the rocks. But you also might be lucky and have it bounce over you. The Quad would be toast but. That's the way off roading is sometimes.

I tried checking out some land in Montana but so far nothing online that is interesting that is affordable. Found a really nice farm for sale. It had every kind of terrain you could think of including it's own sandpit! it was around 650 acres.

I'll have to actually go there and look up a realtor rather than do it online.

Have you ever rolled your Jeep? Also just curious but is the Auto better than the Stick? I prefer a manual tranny but offroad if your foots slips off the clutch it can be a real problem.

"Scooby Don't" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

true......but the personal expense of the last move hurt a whole lot more.

the worst i ever got hurt on the atv, i was going less than 1mph. coming down a STEEP hill i was in 1st gear low range and it was to low for the incline. ass end came up over the front and landed on me.

ive rolled mine on #9 slickrock at tellico, i lost it on the #11 staircase once (one more tumble and i would have lost the quad over the big drop), the brown mountain staircase, and i even threw myself off it last weekend trying to spin a donut without taking it out of 4x4 first. :-) aside from the donut trick, its all part of riding an atv. if you dont roll it once in awhile, you arent pushing its limits and if you arent pushing its limits you arent having any fun anyway. i dont recommend it for everyone, but with enough experience you learn _how_ to fall off an atv. lol.

try

definately the best way.

not yet anyway, and i dont want to change that if i can help it. unlike the atv, the jeep isnt something i can just dust off and hop back on.

i keep hearing people say its a matter of personal preference, but these are usually people that own manuals or theyre trying not to offend manual owners. my '00 sahara was a 5 speed and my '03 rubicon is the 4 speed auto (both can be seen here

). prior to testing onefor myself, an auto just seemed out of place in a jeep. all it took was onetest to change my mind. having owned both it is my sincere belief that theautomatic is superior in every conceiveable way off road with the exceptionof engine braking (and thats only a handicap if you dont know how to use thebig pedal beside the accelerator). (it is my belief that) the auto issuperior in mud and sand because it applies constant torque even duringshifts. if you ever watch street class mud bogs youll eventually noticethat the manuals have trouble when momentum is lost during a shift. with anauto this isnt an issue. in really deep beach sand its the same thing. oncertain parts of ft. fisher youd better start out in whatever gear youintend to stay in because if you attempt to shift your jeep will come to anabrupt halt before you can complete the shift. this isnt an issue eitherwith an auto. the biggest advantage to an auto is in the rocks. becausethere is slippage in the torque converter you wont knock off a dozen timestrying to creep up a really big/tricky boulder. ive never seen a pro classrock crawler use an manual. while im sure there is an exception, i haventseen one. now im not suggesting that because you have an auto and another guy has a manual that youll be "better".....but im saying that if you take the same driver and give him 2 jeeps, one with a manual and one with an auto, he'll most likely do "better" with the auto. certainly there are exceptions to everything ive said but having owned and wheeled both, ill never go back to a manual so long as a dependable auto is available.

we had an "incident" a couple hours ago that im not going to discuss here (for fear of being accused of using this forum for doing my own laundry) but the wifey told me shed rather deal with the snow in montana than to stay here any longer. it looks highly possible that ill make it out of here sooner than i thought. once im able to unwind and relax again, im gonna party like its 1999.

Approximately 9/21/03 21:11, Scooby Don't uttered for posterity:

According to their web site, Ryder doesn't do one way rentals... is that outdated info? They seem to have the nicest trucks if not for that little gotcha.

Approximately 9/22/03 00:19, Nathan W. Collier uttered for posterity:

Good luck. Check the weather, it just snowed on Logan a weekend ago...putting out most of the fires. If you stay on the interstates, I've never been out of travel for more than 1 day even in the middle of winter. Take cable chains and only a blizzard that drops several feet of snow on the highway can stop you.

--snip--

No problem getting a Ryder for one way across Colorado two years ago. The gas engine truck wasn't too bad on the passes either.

Earle

No doubt there, it' tough to move with the wife and kinder in tow.

Ouch, that's no fun at all. It's easier to understand getting hurt going too fast rather than too slow.

I don't know as I want to push an ATV hard enough to lose it any more. I've already permanantly damaged myself. I have to take it pretty easy from now on. No extreme trails or that sort of thing. Montana should be a lot of fun for off road activities. I wouldn't mind having a sled again. It's been too long. I fell off my old sled once and that was a world of pain. SOB's had a telephone pole under the snow on a slight incline in a field. Thankfully it threw me clear of the machine which kept going for a while. I must have hit that doing 40 mph. Groomed trails would be better.

Yep, I already tried them, it's a good site.

I've pulled a few jeeps upright when I had my truck. Mostly youger kids taking dads Jeep out for a beat run in the Pits. My truck was pretty good at offroading but it was far better at pulling dead Jeeps and things like that.

This sounds a lot like teh trouble I have had with 2 strokes. Once you run out of juice you HAVE to shift. Once you shift you lose momentum. I'd probably look at an auto if I were to get a Jeep. I prefer a stick in a roadgoing car but offroad a lot is going on all at once. Plus having chronic sciatica in your clutch leg means eventually that left leg will give. Thanks for the info.

Well Hell I'd rather deal with Snow than Hurricanes anyday. :) At least it was a postive thing with your wife.

that was one i never saw coming. the price of trying to show off for your buds!

i guess im about at the same point, for the most part anyway. im purchasing a rhino

when they come out so that my 2 year oldcan ride with me buckled in safely. it wont be able to do the extreme stufflike the atv can anyway, but should still be capable enough to ride 75% oftellico (although id never take a 2 year old there anyway) and provideprotection for both of us.

thats in my long term plans but sleds scare me. my atv runs about 52mph, the rhino will run somewhere around 65 but neither gets close to that fast on technical trails. most sleds can break 100mph easy and i know if itll do it, then ill push it.

ouch! my point exactly. on the trail im usually going below 10mph and since ive learned my lesson about coming down crazy steep inclines, hopefully there wont be anymore accidents (i dont consider rolling an atv to be an accident unless it lands on you or you get hurt in the process).

yup. thats the same reason why i prefer my brothers 500 automatic atv over my 500 manual. any more atv purchases will be auto for the same reason. the rhino is also auto.

wasnt the hurricane that did it. 'twas another run-in with a crack head.