Month: May 2021

 So last Friday I had to drive down to Cheyenne to get the 15,000 mile service on my Hyundai.  I scheduled the appointment for 12:20pm to allow the 3 hour drive and time for lunch at Chili’s in Cheyenne.  After lunch, I took the car in and two and a half hours later was ready to return home.

On the way down I noticed a sign (about 45 minutes North of Cheyenne) for a site called Quebec-01, a former missile silo. On the way back up to Casper they highway department was working on the bridge over the exit to Quebec-01 so I exited to check it out. 

The site is just a couple of blocks off the freeway, and I drove in.

It’s pretty unassuming, just a garage and moderate building. It turns out it is a former Peacekeeper missile control site. When the Peacekeeper missiles were decommissioned in 2005 the site was scrapped and shutdown.  Eventually the state took over and it was rebuilt as a museum site.  The chare is $8.00 for the tour ($7.00 for military). The base building was for the guard force and support personnel (e.g. the cook). Below ground was the bunker for the two man launch crew.

At the bottom of the elevator is the blast door. An amusing fact, as initially installed it could only be opened from the outside. Once locked in the 2 man control team could not leave until relieved. 

All in all it was interesting, but a whole different environment than what I was used to.  The two-man crew was locked in for 24-hours at a time.  They went through the launch sequence where they would get the launch codes, verify them and they would each have a key to turn at the designated time. In addition, another crew would have to do the same process and turn their keys at the same time to actually launch the missiles.

 So I am back in Casper, WY, and it really feels like I came home. The differences in parts of the country have become very obvious in the last year. I have moved all around the country while in the Navy, and while there were regional differences, mostly in accents and some opinions about the “War of Southern Independence  / Civil War”, it was obvious that we were in one united country.

I don’t have that feeling anymore. From the AntiFa / Black Block insurrectionists in downtown Portland, to the BLM crowds in Minneapolis and other flashpoints across the country, to the tens of thousands of migrants (formerly known as illegal immigrants) pouring across our southern ‘border’, much of the country does not appear to be under the control of state & local governments.  Riding the MAX trains from the PDX airport through Portland to Beaverton I saw several signs of the descent into the third world that I had recognized while traveling overseas. There were literally dozens of homeless ‘encampments’ scattered along the freeways, underpasses, and other ‘unclaimed’ areas. There were scattered areas of a major downtown city that were still boarded up from mobs breaking storefronts. 

I drove back from Portland, through Washington and into Idaho with every gas station requiring masks on everyone, as if we were still in the depths of a global pandemic. When I stopped for gas in Sheridan WY, I felt as if I had left the endemic fear behind. I felt as if I had driven across post-war Berlin and entered the American Sector. 

Casper WY has no homeless camps (that I have seen), no boarded up storefronts, only a few people wear masks (I presume the unvaccinated, the elderly, or fans of Joe Biden).  There is now a dramatic cultural difference between the West (Left) Coast states and the interior hinterlands. I weep for what has been lost.

 So we made an expedition out to get dinner at Chile’s (failed – they closed early at 4:00pm) and to get some groceries to eat in the room. In the meantime I discovered something only found in California. A Lamborghini SUV. See picture below:

From Wikipedia – It appears to be a Lamborghini Urus the perfect family runabout for trips to the grocery store.