MONTANA

[jinx]

"Every day like today, arid, flat and spare

but with beautiful small signs as August dies."

The two lines above are from a poem titled MONTANA by Kenneth O. Hanson, Lamont poetry award winner (Academy of American Poets), an Oregonian BUT BORN IN iDAHO, and my friend and poetry mentor AND TEACHER. He died in Greece about 5 years ago, having moved here after his retirement. He had been a professor of Literature at Reed College in Oregon. I write poetry too.

Ken's first book was titled THE DISTANCE ANYWHERE, a phrase very appropriate for the expanses of Montana and Idaho and Wyoming.

He often went to Missoula, to visit Richard Hugo, another famous poet. Over coffee he often spoke to me of the various buttes visible in Montana in the middle of desert country. He said these are large boulders rising from the ground. And he also spoke of "open-pit" mines--you may have modeled some of those...They are holes blasted on sides of open hills by dynamite for mining stones and rocks of all kinds.They get larger the older the mines get thru further blast-outs.

I do not have the area yet, for lack of funds because of the horrid economic crisis we have in Greece now, but a friend has it and when he comes back from vacation, I intend to visit him and see the area in his PC.

So we can find it, as the state is very large, could you please provide us with a departure airstrip and an approximate heading so we can see some Montana buttes? Looking at some of the screenshots in your site I think I saw a large one that could have been part of CENTRAL ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

Nick from Athens, Greece

PS: The economic crisis here is worse than the impression you get from the media. People commit suicide every day...

[wkranke]

Nick,

I don´t know if it´s of great help but I´d recommed to start out KSUN (Friedman Mem) to U46( Big Southern Butte) and U37 (Midway) and you´ll see plenty of them beatifully modelled, Another tour could be from 5U8 (Geraldine) to S64 (Stanford) to visit "round and square butte". The first one is more scenic...my 2 cents.

And well...I am from Germany, have German/greek friends, have been to your country many years ago....you are right, our politicians dont´tell us the truth about the crisis which got obvious with Greece but others will follow and the concept of the EU is definitely crap (concerning Euro and the way they want to rule the whole thing). It´s a ride on the volcano and probably will affect the economy on both sides of the big pond. I´ll stop now talking about that as this is a flightsim forum, dont´get me wrong for that Nick .

All the best

willy

[jinx]

Willie,

Many thanks for the information--we shall do the flights as you say--can't wait.

And thanks for the political sympathy. The whole affair is hurting Germany also.

Danke,

Nick