Had some fun

[Chicken lights]

Ok David.... what did you really think of that monument? We drove down there and were actually disappointed to some degree. First off we wouldn't call it a mountain and second.... well if you've seen a postcard you've basically been there.
The Kicking Horse monument is royal rip off. Devils Tower is worth the side trip if you get a chance.

Craig

To be fair, it’s actually not that impressive. What I find interesting is seeing the tools and imagining how they did that 80-90 years ago. No man lifts none of the power tools of today none of the laser measuring tools.

You remember the paddle with the rubber ball on a string as a kid? They basically had a larger one of those as a plumb bob. They made the scale carvings first then used that to measure for the tips of the noses. Then took that to the mountain and made it ten times larger. They largely used dynamite first then moved to jackhammers to finish roughing them in. Then they used kind of like a needle scaler but for stone to finish them.

They said 14 years and 400 people working on it to finish it

Its a huge USA icon, it was absolutely jammed in there today. At a guess it’s part of the “frick ya ‘Murica” culture that they have. They are proud of Lincoln and Washington I know that much

 

[YYCHM]

To be fair, it’s actually not that impressive. What I find interesting is seeing the tools and imagining how they did that 80-90 years ago. No man lifts none of the power tools of today none of the laser measuring tools.

You remember the paddle with the rubber ball on a string as a kid? They basically had a larger one of those as a plumb bob. They made the scale carvings first then used that to measure for the tips of the noses. Then took that to the mountain and made it ten times larger. They largely used dynamite first then moved to jackhammers to finish roughing them in. Then they used kind of like a needle scaler but for stone to finish them.

They said 14 years and 400 people working on it to finish it

Its a huge USA icon, it was absolutely jammed in there today. At a guess it’s part of the “frick ya ‘Murica” culture that they have. They are proud of Lincoln and Washington I know that much

Ya for sure, the info and displays of the making were interesting and well done. How hot is it down there now? When we were there it was stupid hot with severe hail storm alerts.

HEY Rapid City has a really good Air Museum and a tour of an abandoned nuclear missile launch site that's REALLY interesting.

 

[Chicken lights]

Ya for sure, the info and displays of the making were interesting and well done. How hot is it down there now? When we were there it was stupid hot with severe hail storm alerts.

HEY Rapid City has a really good Air Museum and tour of an abandoned nuclear missile site that's REALY interesting.

I remembered the missile site was around here, but I do actually have to go trucking tomorrow

it’s not that hot it’s low 80’s during the day probably 70’s now

 

[YYCHM]

but I do actually have to go trucking tomorrow

Where is that taking you?

 

[Chicken lights]

Where is that taking you?

Back to Ontario. I was hoping this trip they might send me to BC or AB next. Oh well

 

[YYCHM]

On average... what percentage of the the time do you spend camping out in the truck v.s. getting a motel room?

 

[Chicken lights]

On average... what percentage of the the time do you spend camping out in the truck v.s. getting a motel room?

These days- 99% the truck vs a motel

 

[historicalarms]

Well keep in mind I had hearing protection on and there was live fire on the range- but the gist of what I understand is the modern mini-guns or Vulcan’s are based off the Gatling gun multi barrel design. The part I didn’t quite catch was the Gatling gun is slow to fire because of the cranking mechanism and the torque needed to turn it by a human being. However if you remove the human powered part and drive it with a motor, you can vastly improve the rate of fire.

The other part I didn’t quite catch was when the Gatling was designed muzzle loaders were the primary rifle of the day. The cartridge design (this is where it gets fuzzy) was an attempt to replace the muzzle loading slow process by re-packaging into a one piece cartridge that could be breech fed. I’m hoping I’m saying that right

The range officer said the only downside to the Gatling was it required two teams, one team to move and position the gun and another to bring the ammo. He said that Custer had 2 or 3 Gatling guns at his camp that he didn’t bring to the Little Big Horn battle, possibly for that reason. He added he wonders if Custer regretted that decision.

History lessons with live fire 5-10 feet away isn’t the best classroom but I got most of it

Yes, the first Gatling's were of the "muzzleloader variety" but not the same as the muskets we generally associated with that era. They were of 1 inch caliber & each load was in an individual chambered piece of bar the same length as the charge with ball installed. These Chambers fell into a trough in the rotary mechanism as the crank rotated it, were fired and fell out the bottom to be picked up & reloaded by a team of loaders. The balls entered the barrels at a "forcing cone" and then traveled down the barrel bore same as they have done in revolvers for decades.
The original Gatling's had a reputation of BP fowling & jamming so the Gatling was never purchased by the US ordinance dept. until after the civil war but a couple or three were purchased privately by Generals for their own battalions to use but to my knowledge they were only deployed for use once at Antietam Creek but were never fired in battle.
Dave is right about the Gatling's influence in brass contained cartridges by the end of the war. Because of the strain on lead supplies and much more urgent need for musket ball the bore size was reduced to .50 caliber and the first brass foil wrapped cartridges were developed in .50 -70 sized cartridges at or near the end of the war. Now the "sliding bolt" firing mechanism was designed ( as Dave says, the same design is used today on the most modern war machines available). But again the BP fowling played a part in the foil cartridge failure, when the fowling started to build and cases began to stick in the chambers, the extractor claws easily pulled through those ultra thin foil rims, jamming gun. The need for stronger rimmed cartridges became very evident and the pressed/ formed rimmed
brass as we know it to day came about, in a large part, because of DR Gatling and his "gun designed to make war so horrific that it would cease to be a thing".

Dr. Gatling was actually "one of us" home inventor/machinist types. While he claimed to be a certified doctor there is some dispute that he never actually graduated from medical college. He was for sure a prolific inventor in his fathers work shop on the farm. He is, of course, most famous for inventing "the gun" but he was the first inventor of the screw propeller used on millions of boats since then and the forefathers of the farm seeding machines used today came from his shop.

 

[historicalarms]

That's not quite what @historicalarms is talking about. I believe that miniature 22lr Gatling gun is prohibited in Canada.

yes it is prohibited if built as designed for the already mentioned reasons.
A machine shop owner buddy of mine had a set of those .22 blue prints and and spent a bit of time doing a cost analysis. He claimed at least 45 hrs of actual journeyman machining and 200 hrs of prep & set-up time to complete the gun as per blue prints for gun only, not including the tri-stand for it....he never started the project.

I here tell it can take 2 yrs to home-shop one (full sized .45 colt) from pencil drawn on paper to completion.

 

[Chicken lights]

Yes, the first Gatling's were of the "muzzleloader variety" but not the same as the muskets we generally associated with that era. They were of 1 inch caliber & each load was in an individual chambered piece of bar the same length as the charge with ball installed. These Chambers fell into a trough in the rotary mechanism as the crank rotated it, were fired and fell out the bottom to be picked up & reloaded by a team of loaders. The balls entered the barrels at a "forcing cone" and then traveled down the barrel bore same as they have done in revolvers for decades.
The original Gatling's had a reputation of BP fowling & jamming so the Gatling was never purchased by the US ordinance dept. until after the civil war but a couple or three were purchased privately by Generals for their own battalions to use but to my knowledge they were only deployed for use once at Antietam Creek but were never fired in battle.
Dave is right about the Gatling's influence in brass contained cartridges by the end of the war. Because of the strain on lead supplies and much more urgent need for musket ball the bore size was reduced to .50 caliber and the first brass foil wrapped cartridges were developed in .50 -70 sized cartridges at or near the end of the war. Now the "sliding bolt" firing mechanism was designed ( as Dave says, the same design is used today on the most modern war machines available). But again the BP fowling played a part in the foil cartridge failure, when the fowling started to build and cases began to stick in the chambers, the extractor claws easily pulled through those ultra thin foil rims, jamming gun. The need for stronger rimmed cartridges became very evident and the pressed/ formed rimmed
brass as we know it to day came about, in a large part, because of DR Gatling and his "gun designed to make war so horrific that it would cease to be a thing".

Dr. Gatling was actually "one of us" home inventor/machinist types. While he claimed to be a certified doctor there is some dispute that he never actually graduated from medical college. He was for sure a prolific inventor in his fathers work shop on the farm. He is, of course, most famous for inventing "the gun" but he was the first inventor of the screw propeller used on millions of boats since then and the forefathers of the farm seeding machines used today came from his shop.

Fantastic stuff!
They did have a .50 slug (I think, again, lots going on at the time) that they said was the original design, or at least very close, just for show. Exactly as you described the cartridges were roughly 1” diameter, primer in one end and lead in the other. Nothing at all (well a little) like modern brass cartridges.

A couple years ago I was in North Carolina at a re-enactment place and they had a very funny guy who went through a muzzle loading sequence. He went through all the steps and showed how long it took to load one. This was even before flintlock and you needed to light the wick to fire the rifle. The best part was, he said if the enemy was still within sight after reloading the whole thing, all the enemy had to do was take two big steps to the left and you’d miss your target.

 

[YYCHM]

How far did you get today?

 

[Chicken lights]

How far did you get today?

Minnesota, went to the Badlands for a couple hours this morning. Your minuteman visitor centre is exit 131 on I90, with two other spots for the actual silos

 

[YYCHM]

That's interesting...... the tour we went on originated from the Rapid City Air Museum and took us onto Ellsworth AFB complete with armed guards at the entrance gate. Was pretty cool to see all the B1s parked and lined up ready to roll.

https://www.sdairandspacemuseum.com/ And I see they have more stuff than when we were there.... 2012

And here we thought we had badlands in AB

Keep the pics coming..... please

 

[YYCHM]

Where are you today?

When I looked at the map, I didn't realize how far east we went to reach Rapid City from Calgary. Another two or three days worth would have put us in Ont.

 

[historicalarms]

X2 on the photo's Dave. particularly poignant to me is the one looking over that big ol' bug killer. Brought back many memories with that one. My first truck was a W.S. with that big old flat hood always out in front of me....then I bought a KW with the anteater hood, couldn't even see the bug deflector with that one...last truck was a 9900 binder, back to the big ol' hood out front...felt like home again.

Dave, It might feel mundane & very boring trying to chase down that 25,000 Km a month right now but enjoy your time "driving by the world" as sooner or later it gets to be me ....sitting in a house, just watching the world go by.

 

[Chicken lights]

X2 on the photo's Dave. particularly poignant to me is the one looking over that big ol' bug killer. Brought back many memories with that one. My first truck was a W.S. with that big old flat hood always out in front of me....then I bought a KW with the anteater hood, couldn't even see the bug deflector with that one...last truck was a 9900 binder, back to the big ol' hood out front...felt like home again.

Dave, It might feel mundane & very boring trying to chase down that 25,000 Km a month right now but enjoy your time "driving by the world" as sooner or later it gets to be me ....sitting in a house, just watching the world go by.

It’s hard to keep the bug deflector and mirrors out of the pictures they like sneaking in there. Actually I’ve heard from a couple guys exactly what you’re saying, stretching your legs and crisscrossing this continent for years then they grab a local gig and their world shrinks. Especially the older drivers that could leave Edmonton Sunday and be in Houston Monday, if you catch my drift.

Here’s one for you- I dragged a man lift down to Salt Lake City. Wyoming POE at Cheyenne pulled me in, I was a little heavy on my front trailer axle. (Spread axle stepdeck, legal for 40,000 as a group but only 20,000 each axle) So when I loaded up near Cody WY I knew to watch the axle weights. I could NOT get things moved around so all the axle groups were legal, I needed to tarp this so that wasn’t helping arranging things. Finally I gave up and called Sheridan POE and asked if there was any grace on the 20,000 limit. They said 500 pounds extra. I was at 20,440 by my math.

I was scaling on what they call a beam scale, it only has one “pad”, sure it’s 80’ long you can weigh the whole truck, to get individual weights you have to “split scale” each axle or groups of axles to calculate the weights.

Left there, tarped it in the morning, called Gillette POE and headed that way. Sure enough got pulled in. Grabbed my mittful of scale tickets from the day before. The DOT officer said I’m a bit heavy on the front trailer axle. I gave her a big smile and asked what they thought I was over by. She said 20,400, showing me the slip. I turned mine around and said good, I figured I was 20,440, but Sheridan said I’m legal up to 20,500. She gave ME a big smile and said oh so you knew you were heavy. You must remember playing those games

Actually huge shoutout to Wyoming DOT. They have always been helpful, and they choose education over punishment at least from what I’ve seen. If you look up Cody WY go a bit NE towards Lovell and look for road 14A. That’s restricted to commercial traffic but 14 isn’t. Sheridan POE strongly suggested I don’t take 14. Their biggest reason was its tourist season. I guess some nasty grades, so I went down to Worland and across 16. Still no joke there was plenty of 8 and 10% grades but the point is WYDOT saved me from making a possible error in judgement.

 

[Chicken lights]

Where are you today?

When I looked at the map, I didn't realize how far east we went to reach Rapid City from Calgary. Another two or three days worth would have put us in Ont.

We made it almost to Michigan last night

I don’t know if you’ve spent much time in Montana but Hwy 2 is a very scenic drive. I’ve run almost all of it from Shelby MT to Sault St Marie at one time or another. Or you could branch off at Duluth and go north to Thunder Bay, that’s a pretty drive too.
Let me know if you do want to go out east to Ontario, I’ll put in a good word for you

 

[Chicken lights]

Skip the politics please focus on the truck. Judging by the front clip that’s around a 1980-82 Chevy. It’s a frigging 8 door Suburban!! I didn’t poke around too much but there was a bench seat by every door, it’s a frickin’ bud!! Way too cool

 

[Chicken lights]

Well these are probably all out of order, but they’re just from on the trip

Salt Lake City back to Green River/Rock Springs, up to Lander over to Shoshoni, then 20 north to Thermopolis theres a crazy canyon drive. 120 northwest outta Thermopolis over to Cody. Then 14/20 over to Yellowstone.

We were told by Yellowstone staff if we dropped the trailer we could bobtail in (just the truck). Guy at the gate was pretty rude and wouldn’t let us in. So we left. Disappointed but we didn’t raise a fuss

I’m surprised at the amount of water in some of the states. Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, the Dakotas, they have a lot of water I didn’t expect.

Then back to Cody, 14A to Lovell, down to 310/20 to Worland. 16 across to Buffalo then I90 out to SoDak

Year and a half ago we ran AB to TX on I25 through WY, this trip we covered all of I80, I’d say we’ve seen most of WY now. A very pretty state

 

[historicalarms]

It’s hard to keep the bug deflector and mirrors out of the pictures they like sneaking in there. Actually I’ve heard from a couple guys exactly what you’re saying, stretching your legs and crisscrossing this continent for years then they grab a local gig and their world shrinks. Especially the older drivers that could leave Edmonton Sunday and be in Houston Monday, if you catch my drift.

Here’s one for you- I dragged a man lift down to Salt Lake City. Wyoming POE at Cheyenne pulled me in, I was a little heavy on my front trailer axle. (Spread axle stepdeck, legal for 40,000 as a group but only 20,000 each axle) So when I loaded up near Cody WY I knew to watch the axle weights. I could NOT get things moved around so all the axle groups were legal, I needed to tarp this so that wasn’t helping arranging things. Finally I gave up and called Sheridan POE and asked if there was any grace on the 20,000 limit. They said 500 pounds extra. I was at 20,440 by my math.

I was scaling on what they call a beam scale, it only has one “pad”, sure it’s 80’ long you can weigh the whole truck, to get individual weights you have to “split scale” each axle or groups of axles to calculate the weights.

Left there, tarped it in the morning, called Gillette POE and headed that way. Sure enough got pulled in. Grabbed my mittful of scale tickets from the day before. The DOT officer said I’m a bit heavy on the front trailer axle. I gave her a big smile and asked what they thought I was over by. She said 20,400, showing me the slip. I turned mine around and said good, I figured I was 20,440, but Sheridan said I’m legal up to 20,500. She gave ME a big smile and said oh so you knew you were heavy. You must remember playing those games

Actually huge shoutout to Wyoming DOT. They have always been helpful, and they choose education over punishment at least from what I’ve seen. If you look up Cody WY go a bit NE towards Lovell and look for road 14A. That’s restricted to commercial traffic but 14 isn’t. Sheridan POE strongly suggested I don’t take 14. Their biggest reason was its tourist season. I guess some nasty grades, so I went down to Worland and across 16. Still no joke there was plenty of 8 and 10% grades but the point is WYDOT saved me from making a possible error in judgement.

OHHH man do I remember those days of stressing over axle weights, breaking out in a cold sweat when hearing on the radio that DOT's were in the area. In AB there is no overage allowance at all, fines are $1 per KG. One time I had my bridge distance snugged up 1.5 inches to short and was pulled over by a mobile unit...that 1.5 inch dropped my legal load with a tri-axle down 7.5 Tonnes.....I was sweating on that one ($7,500) but circumstances of the highway stop and the fact that a real old DOT "more forgiving" officer was present saved my bacon on that one.

Been in & out of Cody many times but never with a "wheeler"...always pulling an RV unit. The only incident of note was we got caught in a big "flash flood" one trip. Water was 1/2 way up the doors on the pickup and current was pushing the trailer towards the ditch big time for 0ver 500 yards....wifey left nail & tooth marks in the dash on that one .

Dave, you don't mention the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum from your Cody visit, man if you didn't get to see that you probably missed the best museum ever. I have spent 4 full days in that place & not seen it all yet, 3 wings to the place, Old West History, Western art ( Charles Russel-Fredrick Remington etc.) and the peace-de- resistance , The Gun museum ( largest in North America, second in the world only to the British London history museum)....Their entrance door exhibit would interest you, a 1875 Colt's manufactured Gatling.