Miss Montana

Sunday mornings around the Tuna household are quiet and peaceful.  We usually wake up slowly anywhere from 6am to 8am, depending on a few different variables.  These might include when nature calls (PM fluid intake dependent), our four-legged family member (FEED ME!!), or when nature calls for that same four-legged family member.  I still have trouble staying asleep through the whole night, but this past Sunday I was blessed to sleep in until 0630!  Cici, our Welsh Pembroke Corgi can actually let herself out to the backyard via a couple doggy doors through the garage, but her weekday 6am feeding when I get up for work, is often demanded on the weekends as well, but not that day.  

Sunday Morning.  It's a great little jazzy tune which is a nice little digression for a few minutes if you'd like.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

Anyway, The Artist returned home after completing her junior year in college the afternoon prior, and with that reunion comes her own four-legged kid, Cici's sister Beatrice (we have a B and a C).  Still excited to see each other, they were rough-housing a bit once they woke up.  Normally that wouldn't disturb me, but they decided to play (aka, figuring out who is Alpha again), on my bed, which ended my beauty sleep for the day.  Interesting dynamic there- Bea is typically more assertive and dominant than our Cici, but she only lives here part time so Cici gets top billing.  They fight about it for a bit and learn to tolerate each other, but if it gets a little too aggressive or noisy, I just assert myself as the true Alpha and they mellow out.  

But I had to get up anyway because I had a big day ahead.  

At times Sarge proudly posts photos of his yard that he and his Missus carefully cultivate.  Here in SanDog I don't have much of one, with the backyard being a steep canyon, and the front just a tiny triangle, but here it is.  Eight hours before these photos were taken it was almost impossibly taken over by weeds.  We received so much rain this past winter and spring, that I couldn't keep up.

As you can see, almost the entire state is well above average rainfall levels for the year, and there's still seven months to go.  San Diego, down in that little green corner at the bottom, is over 110%, and the weeds love it.  No matter how many I pulled in a weekend, ten times that many took their place by the next.  I had planned to just wait them out until it quit raining, usually in April, but it just kept raining, and did as recently as Monday.  That's quite unusual for us out here on the Southern left coast, with bright and sunny being the preferred norm.  So I had to get the motivation to spend 8 hours pulling weeds, trimming trees, and raking up leaves.  

Or I could call a guy and pay him to do it.  

That's exactly what I had planned, a plan that was executed beautifully as you can see above.  There's a lot of blank space on that canvas, which I intend to fill with more plants soon I hope.  At 7am when he arrived and started to work, I had a cup of coffee and sat down to watch CBS Sunday Morning.  It's a show my wife and I very much enjoy, and that day's episode was most excellent.  

By now you're probably wondering what the title means and where I'm going with this post.  If you wanted a story about a pretty lady with the title Miss Montana, you can click here.  But if you want to see a pretty lady in the air, one like those that helped liberate a continent, keep reading.

Sunday's episode featured a story about the 75th anniversary of D-Day which will include a commemorative fly over by fifteen C-47 Skytrains.  The story was actually more focused on one specific airplane, the one named Miss Montana. This particular plane, while not actually getting a chance to serve in theater since the war ended shortly after it was built, did see service as a museum piece, and before that as an airplane for smokejumpers based out of Missoula Montana.

June 6, 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of the invasion of the Allied troops at Normandy, France, which became known as D-Day. The invasion was part of the larger “Operation Overlord” which was a multi-national effort; however, of the approximately one million troops who took part in the invasion, roughly half were from the United States.

Prior to World War II, many Montanans were in the armed forces, and in the first year following the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941 over 40,000 more joined. Before the end of the war there were over 57,000 enlisted soldiers from Montana which constituted 10 percent of our population at that time -- one of the highest numbers per capita of any state. At least 1,500 died during the War, and the remainder are quickly passing on. Their service to America and the world should never be forgotten.

To honor the brave men and women who fought in the invasion at Normandy during this horrendous World War II battle, a contingent of approximately forty C-47’s will fly over Normandy on June 6, 2019.

Miss Montana looking good.                                                          Source

The story intrigued me for a few reasons.  Aviation history is the most obvious one, but I also have family up in Montana now, with my youngest sister-in-law moving up there with her husband and four boys, escaping the meth capital that Southern Oregon has become.  I also like the Smoke-Jumper history that the bird had.  Out in Cave Junction Oregon, near where I lived, was the Illinois Valley Airport, which was the home base of our own area Smokejumpers. 

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Seeing how the airplane served as a museum display, it took quite a bit of time, effort, and a whole lot more money to make her air-worthy again.  But they had a lot of donations and a large crew of volunteers, including some Rosie Riveters in WWII factory clothing.  Great story which you can watch below

A similar one from an affiliate.

Lousy internet connection?  The full CBS story is here.

AOPA

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They're all in Europe for tomorrow's commemorative flyover.  Like I said in my last post, we need to keep remembering these heroes and the wars they fought.  So the time and money spent to get them flying is a price well paid, and pales in comparison to the price the Greatest Generation paid. 

If you want to read more of the coverage of this event, click here and here and here and here.