We went over to Helena this past Friday for our annual Charity affair with Cousin Debbie and her husband, then up to the cabin late Friday night for the weekend.

There was a big fire very close by that started in mid-August that consumed a little over 5,000 acres. This weekend was the first time they were letting property owners up there to see what had happened, as there are still crews on mop-up out there. The fire stopped about 1/4 mile from the cabin, but up over a ridge so we actually can't see anything from the cabin.

Randy and I decided to take the ATV's and go up and look it over. We took off up the road from the cabin.............nice and green, birds chirping. We came around a hairpin turn and entered into a completely different landscape. TOTAL devastation as far as you could see. It was like being in some science fiction movie....nothing but charred trees, no needles left and most branches burned off. The ground was totally black with ash and soot.

We went a ways further on this road and Randy stops and turns to me.

"Bob, do you smell smoke?"

I look around. We're smack dab in the middle of 5,000 acres of charred timber, burned to a crisp.

"No dummy. I smell a big hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top.......Whatta ya think I smell?"

"No, no. I mean fresh smoke. Like a fresh fire, you know."

I glance over Randy's shoulder, up the slope about 100 feet. I simply point that direction.

"Holy cow. That sucker is still on fire. Do you think we should do something?" Randy says.

"Ya got any hot dogs on ya? I'm getting kind of hungry. Besides, what the hell is it gonna burn if it falls down? Everything for miles is toast."

We let the widow maker burn in silent splendor and head on down the road.

We (Randy, that is) decide to go back on this old skid trail. BAD MISTAKE.
Every 50 feet we had to move downed, charred trees out of the way, either by winching them off the trail of lifting them ourselves. All the time we're keeping an eye out for trees that decide it's time to fall over and do us great bodily harm or squash our rides out.

We get back to the cabin and Donna and Debbie just bust out laughing.

"What???" we both say.

"Go look in the mirror," Donna says.

We both looked like two raccoons from head to foot. Faces, clothes, and everything else attached to us was coal black.

Jeez, they made us take showers and get clean.

"Why?" I asked. "We're just going up again tomorrow. Then you'll probably make us shower again. So why bother now?"

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LOL! How in the world you have lived to the ripe old age you are is beyond me. God must be saying "Jeez.......Bob makes Evel Knievel look like a chicken. I SHOULD probably take Bob.....but I just can't do it! He's WAY too entertaining!"

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As they say Cheesey, Shit Happens!....and I'm usually right in the middle of it.

You get started doing something and kind of forget the serious results that could happen.

"Practice what I preach, not what I do."

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