A blog about a girl who speaks her mind and talks about whatever she wants. So its a blog about everything, and absolutely nothing, all at the same time. . .
Profile
Name: Kami
Alias: Risawn
Location: Washington State, United States
An avid Snowboarder, rabid NRA supporter, Starving Artist, Military Junkie, anti-fru-fru Glorified Private that basically posts incoherant ramblings and things better left unsaid.
I'm not exactly sure what I should or shouldn't be posting while I'm here in regards to military matters, because of the nature of the job of the drill sergeant, I will likely not post a lot of things in regards to my job, maybe just some vague details here and there, and I have no idea what's going to come of my poor neglected Milblog. I think I will be posting a lot of pictures though (I brought my camera) but not necessarily pictures of troops training, because that's a sensitive area. Mostly pictures of whatever I want to post pictures of. Like bugs, extreme close up shots of random normal objects, scenery, plants, Louisville, you know, just random strange pictures.
I think I could easily fall in love with Louisville. I just drove through it, but on those rare weekends off or the occaissional pass, I will have plenty to occupy my time with that one city.
Meanwhile, I am puttig myself on a diet and going to be working my butt off so when we do pick up our troops, I will be fit and ready to go. I do not want to be the weak link in my unit, though I'm really confident in the capabilities of my fellow drill sergeants that they might make me look like a hyperactive kid in a candy store in comparison. I've got great battle buddies as far as I can tell, and I think working with them will really help develop me as a drill sergeant and a leader.
But I'm here. I'll be here for a while before we even pick up troops too. I think I'll also be quite busy so don't expect much on the blog front. If I'm not posting, well, you should know why.
I'm currently on a road trip, and road trips are so much fun when you are seeing friends and eating junk and driving non stop for hours on end. My road trip is also cross country.
I'm currently in the Salt Lake City area, Kansas city is next on the stop. Except for it being 15 hours according to mapquest. I might be stopping in Lincoln Nebraska.
Or sooner.
After Kansas it's Kentucky.
I'm taking my sweet time when i come home. Of course, it didn't help matters that I misjudged my trip by a day, so i'm cutting myself a day short.
I'll get there on time, its just going to be more driving and less stopping and resting. *sighs*
cars doing great so far. Knock on wood.
I'll post some pictures when i get to my destination.
A few of them said they would look me up when it was revealed that I had a myspace account, well, one of them finally did.
I informed them that they were free to hunt me down after they graduated from AIT, but not before. I could get in trouble for being in contact with troops who haven't graduated basic.
Well, I finally got a friends request from one. I didn't recognize the first name, so I had to look at the pics and saw her in uniform, and I could swear that she was one of my soldiers, but I didn't recognize the name on her uniform as belonging to this soldier, until I realized she recently got married and then found a uniform with the name I knew her as.
Those of you who watch stupid internet movies a lot are probably familiar with Charlie the Unicorn. And how completely insane and stupid it is.
I love the damn thing. I get in a mood and I'll start quoting it. "We're going on an adventure, charlie! An Adventuuuuure. . ."
Well, they came out with a new one. And I've had the Banana song stuck in my head for a few days now.
So much that I actually did it. You know, it works. You have to be in a completely goofy mood to put a banana in your ear, you can't help but be happy, in a completly stupid sort of way.
So yesterday was Bloomsday. At first I didn't think I would be able to run it because I thought I would be out of town by now. However, I could delay my trek enough to get a free t-shirt.
Mom and I are back in the orange group, behind the fence, because we're not big runners (If I train better, I could be, but when I'm not in shape for it, I hate running) So this is our group of bloomies representing our family at the start line.
There's quite a few people who take part in this event, though participation has been down in the last few years. I try to take part whenever I can.
After the runners took off, we go this pic of us slow pokes. Mom and Brian walked it.
I don't think I could come up with an even more unflattering pic of myself. This is the only action shot I got and I shiver at the sight of it.
This is what I look like after cresting Doomsday Hill, around mile marker Five. And I haven't trained up for Bloomsday. This race did show me what i was made of, but I did better then when I ran two years ago. I never walked once. Yes, I ran incredibly slowly, especially going up that stupid hill, and sometimes walkers were going faster then me, but I never walked. If I stopped to walk, I wouldn't have been able to start again.
I always feel the need to have something to carry my camera, wallet, keys, spare change, and MP3 Player. I need to get one of those arm bands. I have one, but it sucks greatly and doesn't fit this MP3 player. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to look like an incredible dork with all of this crap on me.
Me modeling the t-shirt this year. I look back and realize i should have gotten a bigger size. *sighs* Oh well, I intend to lean up this summer, kind of like I did last summer for DSS. And by the power within me, when I'm done, I WILL maintain myself, unlike this winter, with the snow and all, I let myself vedge to much and felt it when I tried to run a 7 and a half mile road race.
The whole fam damily, after the race, don't we look swell?
My sisters Arah and Julie blogged about their experiences with the race as well. Thanks Arah for getting that flattering shot of me :)
I wanted to run last year but broke my foot so I couldn't do it. I should have people watched.
My specifics.
Finish Time: 1:34:20
Overall Place: 14,707 out of 42,697
Ran with a pace of 12:38 per mile
The average pace for 27-year-olds was 14:01
Placed 351st among people the same age
Placed 5,151st among people from Spokane, WA
Placed 10,951st among people from the State of Washington
Placed 20th among people with the same last name
Placed 6,568th among females
Placed 164th out of 454 among 27-year-old females
I've got my goal for next year, if I'm able to run it at least. I want to break 1:15. I'm not distance runner, never really have been, but by next May, I plan on averaging about a ten minute mile. If I can shave fifteen minutes off my time, I'd be ecstatic.
If I could break an hour, I would be even more pumped. But we can only expect so much.
So I finally got a response from the writer of that email I posted about a few days ago. He commented on my reader's comments, saying
Hello Risawn, I re-visited your site a few days ago and was mildly amused by the "Recent Comments" remarks.
Just amazes me how many Americans have an insight into other countries they haven't travelled to or never left the United States.
I am just hoping the American electorate in November chooses wisely.
So, how many of my readers have been to Britain? I know my sister and my father both have. I haven't been to Britain, but I have been to Europe.
And who's been outside of the US? Who commented that wasn't American?
Just want to see where the layout of my readers are. I know one of my friends who's British thought his statement was stupid.
I do find it interesting that he didn't comment on any of my remarks. I won't talk about what I know, but I got to thinking, why is he telling me what to say and think, basically telling me how his country is superior.
Dude, whatever.
I'm sure the electorate will vote according to how they feel. It appears these days the votes are decided by a few percentage points, which shows the diversity of the American people.
People who have bumper stickers on their car that you have to tailgate to read. It's annoying. Especially when you're on the freeway. If people hate tailgaters, they would be wise to not have microscoping lettering on their bumpers that encourage people to read them.
So as I was driving today, I ran across somebody who had some bumper stickers on their car and I noticed a few things about them that really annoyed me.
One is the rainbow sticker. Why is it that whenever you see a rainbow it is immediately attributed to LGBT groups? It supposedly means diversity, at least it did when they first came out with it, but there is more to diversity then who you prefer to have sex with. And even if you are in support of LGBT groups, if you have a rainbow sticker on your car, people will think you are gay. So the only people who can really get about using Rainbows are those who are Gay, or those that don't care.
I'm sorry, no offense to gay people, but a rainbow is a universal symbol and its annoying that its come to a point where it means one thing.
Well, there was the other sticker where it said "another family for Peace", thanks for the info.
And of course, the liberal slogan of attributing the phrase 'Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism' to Thomas Jefferson, which was on this same vehicle.
They must be liberal.
Ok, this saying is just stupid. Though Jefferson has attributed the need for resistence to government from time to time, as 'quoted'** here:
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then."
You know, I would agree with this quote. However, for some reason, I don't think this means dissent being the highest form of patriotism. For one, that doesn't make any sense. There are many greater forms of patriotism then dissenting, and I don't think that Jefferson would say this being the highest form. I've heard liberals use this as their battle cry in support of the war against the war on terror.
But I thought the urban legend that this saying belongs to Jefferson was done by now. When people still use it and put it on their cars, it makes them look like morons.
I don't think I want to make political statements with my car. At least, if I were to make a political statement, I would make sure it is at least accurate.
**I don't know if this is really a Jefferson quote or not. I surfed the internet, found it attributed to him, and think it is a quote that makes more sense then the other. And since the internet is not always the most reliable source of information, this quote comes with this disclaimer.
I had a dream last night that lingered in my thoughts, it was actually kind of vivid, but I'm the type of person to forget them after a few hours.
Yes, it is a dream about Knox. Again. I get there, and for some reason I start out in quasi civilian clothes for some reason and hanging with my battle buddies. I don't recall who these people are, they are just other drill sergeants, and then we have our pickup, a bunch of 'privates'. For some reason, they are all in uniform, but their uniforms are all ate the hell up, their shirts are undone and open and the pattern looks sort of like a hawaiin shirt for some reason. I'm wearing this exact same uniform, but a different pattern, I think mine is more flowery. Yeah, WTH.
So anyway, we are going in a big room and we appear to be going over some training, I don't know what, where you have to hug your battle buddy (I can't think of any army training that requires this, but then again, this is a dream) and one of the privates says jokingly when she runs out of battle buddies that she has to partner up with me, though she refers to me as 'Kami'. For some reason, I've got my first name on my uniform.
I then kick her back and chew her out, telling her to never touch me or call me that again. She sulks and goes back into formation, where the training is over and they all stand around. (Oh, and this is a mixed company, for some reason, we do have females.) One of my battle buddies takes a group of them and starts training, and I look at the rest and they are all doing their own thing, in no semblance of a formation, pretty much talking and joking, and I go over there, yell at them and try to get them in some semblance of a formation.
Well, the other drill sergeants start moving the soldiers out for chow and I'm realizing this, so I start yelling at them to move faster and get in line, because we aren't marching there, and the privates are just not getting it. When we get to the chow hall, I find a few of them doing their own thing, and for some reason, I realize that all of the privates have turned into elementary school age children. I'm chewing them out and yelling at them like a good drill sergeant should and they are laughing at me and pretty much think I'm funny. They go through the chow line like this, and I'm about ready to pull my hair out, when I get the chow hall workers to come out and tell my now kindergarten age privates to please listen to 'miss kami', and I'm looking at her, asking her how she knows my name and she states that they are on a 1/3 shortage at that moment.
As the privates are going through chow line, they are leaving behind their back packs and lingering at different food plates, including one where it looks like the chow hall folks take the uneaten food of the tray and put it on another one for the rest to pick through and eat, and one of the little kids is stopping and picking through this and I'm all disturbed by this so I go back in the back and am peering at their facilities and warning the food people 'hey, I'm Preventive Medicine, please don't make me inspect this place too.'
And then I woke up.
In the dream, I felt all I was doing was yelling and nobody was listening to me. I'm wondering if it is similar to that 'not wearing pants' dream that I had earlier, me doing my darndest to train soldiers, only to find that no matter what I do, the soldiers are untrainable.
And thinking its one big joke.
You know, the dream was funnier when I had just woke up from it, realizing it was a dream. Now I look back, I realize how intensely frustrating it was.
So I got an email today. I found it intriguing, because it's been a while since I had an email such as this. I'm sure I get these from time to time, but I thought I would comment on it because it made me scratch my head and think 'huh?'
Hello Risawn.
I felt compelled to write to you, as I read your blog purely by accident and found it disturbing reading.
I am a former British soldier who has lived in the USA for 4 years. I love Guns, Pistols and Rifles and used to work at Wal-Mart selling in that department. While I acknowledge your freedom of choice and speech and the right to bear arms, brandishing them around and posting them on the internet makes America look stupid and infantile.
As for political preference, these things are private in my country, and exercised through the ballot box, in secret. As an Historian of good repute, may I add that history will not endeavour George Bush Jr kindly as time goes on. His reputation is lower than Harding at the moment.
As for your religious beliefs, those too, are deemed private, the Mormons have not exactly had a good press in the recent years, and a GWB voting, gun-toting lady in camoflage maybe the last thing that they need to have.
On a lighter note, America is but one small country in a big world, just as my country found out in 1776.
May your country quickly learn Humility and may America soon have Universal Healthcare.
So, that was it. He'll probably think I'm being arrogant by posting this on my blog, but you know what? Anything people email me may find itself on my blog. Here is my reply.
Wow, thanks for your enlightening letter. I think I'm going to desert the military and get rid of all my guns while I vote for Ralph Nadar in the next presidential election. I've also converted to Atheism so I never have to worry about shaming Mormons again. < / sarcasm >
My blog is my personal webspace, it is a public forum where I post my thoughts on anything I wish to discuss and has always been that. If you find it that disturbing, don't read it.
I will comment further on his email here.
First Topic- Guns. I like Guns. I like to shoot them. I think they are fun. Every now and again I like to go out and go plinking as a hobby. This is a hobby of mine and I tend to write about things that interest me (not just limited to guns I might add). And this is a blog about me that for some reason has at one time garnered an unusual amount of fascination from people that I still sometimes don't understand (both the fascination and the people), and a few of the readers I got left have lingered for some reason, and a lot of them like guns too. I post about my interests, one of my interests is guns. Sometimes I post gun posts to remind my readers that I'm a gun user, because I have had concerns of stalking in the past. People are less likely to stalk me if I'm armed and they know it.
So I will continue to post topics about guns, about me firing them, and show some bad ass pictures of me holding them with a snarl on my face. Don't mess with me. If you think I'm delving into the stereotype of the infantile and stupid American that the rest of the world apparently sees, so be it. Because you obviously don't know me.
My former NCOIC made a similar comment to me about why I like to pose with military assault weapons, but I might need to add that I now think that man is a retard.
Newsflash, there are 300 million people in America, and I hardly represent our population as a whole. I don't like to consider myself fitting into any particular stereotype, and I don't care what the hell anybody else thinks of me. Especially these days. If you think I look stupid and infantile because I happen to like to pose every now and then with instruments of death, go read somebody else's blog. Nobody is forcing you to read this one.
Topic Two - Politics. Nice to know that they do things that way in Britain. This is a blog that I sometimes voice my opinion on. I'm of a conservative persuasion. This is a blog about me. People who read it for whatever reason are reading my perspective on things. Nobody is telling you to read it.
Furthermore, I don't really write about politics that much, in previous election years I wrote more and I even got a bit more vindictive. I've also grown somewhat since then and that is not the central focus of this blog by any means. It sometimes holds a commentary of my opinions on current events and political matters, but that is not a large interest to me at the moment. If you disagree with me, good for you. You have every right to disagree with me. That's the beauty of personal opinion. But you might notice that there are a whole lot of blogs out there that voice their politics. Some are left, some are right, some are centrist. And some of these aren't even American! *gasp!* I know a few Brits who post about politics.
Topic Three - George W Bush. For some reason, because I posted a picture of me holding an M203 stating I wasn't sorry for voting for the man in 2004, people see me as an unapologetic Bush Supporter. Ok, maybe I am, but this doesn't mean I love the guy. He was never my ideal candidate for President and these last four years have been a disappointment. Still, I don't regret voting for him. I saw the alternative as a worse candidate, whether that is true or not we will never know, because unless somebody can create a device that enters us into an alternate dimension where Kerry was elected President instead, we will never know.
I don't apologize because the only thing you can do about the past is learn from it and drive on. You may notice that I don't post a lot about George W Bush and what a great job he's doing as President, because I don't think he's doing that great. Again, he was never my ideal candidate for President, I voted by my political stance and who I thought was the better man for the job. I didn't like Kerry.
Whoever wins the presidency this year, be it Obama, Clinton or McCain, I think I'll get by as best as I can with whoever wins and get on with my life. I say something every now and again about the candidates, but honestly I'm not fond of the whole lot of them. I guess I'll get by the best I can.
In conclusion. Yes, I voted for GWB. So what? So did about 50 million other Americans. But that's right, we're all retards.
Topic Four - Religion. Now this I don't get about you going off on me not remaining private about my religious beliefs. I'm getting two things from you. You think I should keep my religious affiliations to myself because I should be ashamed of myself considering all of the negative press surrounding my religion as of late. Or you think I should talk about religion less. Or you're anti-Mormon.
Ok, big question mark here. Yes, I am Mormon. I have never denied that I'm a Mormon. And I'm not ashamed of being a Mormon so why should I keep it hidden? But I have never used my website to advertise my religious beliefs to try to convert people EVER. I rarely ever mention my religion or my beliefs here. The fact that I'm a Mormon is part of who I am, I think I may have mentioned it once or twice in a little survey thing that I'm LDS.
Besides, I'm not a stereotypical Mormon Girl. If you actually knew Mormons, you would know that most Mormons will be more then eager to tell you everything about their faith you want to know. I'm the same way, but I choose not to do it here, I only do it when I'm in the company of a person who wants to know more. I am never pushy about my faith and this blog is the last place I should be preaching about it.
I admit I'm not the best example of a Mormon. But I really don't think your judging me on my religion or vice versa because of this blog is really a matter of concern. What confuses me most is this whole phrase that my religion is recieving a lot of negative press lately and 'a GWB voting, gun-toting lady in camoflage maybe the last thing that they need to have.'
What in bloody hell is that supposed to mean anyway? This statement is ridiculous on several counts because of the fact that 1) I very rarely advertise my religious beliefs so why should anybody other then you care, 2) my faith is mostly conservative and therefore most DID vote for GWB because like me, they didn't like the alternative, 3) why does the fact that I'm serving my country in the military have anything to do with my religion and would cause people to look down upon it unless the person judging me is a liberal hate-monger? and 4) a lot of Mormons like guns. Just to let you know.
Also, the FLDS have their roots in my faith, but they are NOT Mormon. They are a sect that broke of a hundred years ago. I'm not going to go into detail because that's not what my blog is about. If you want me to post my beliefs on the FLDS church, I think they are a strange group of people. But I try to be tolerant of other people's faith because I hope people would be tolerant of mine *hah!* I disagree with a lot of things they do, and I mean a LOT of things, but that is not for me to judge. I claim the privilege of worshiping the almighty God according to the dictates of my own conscious, which allows all men the same privilege. My religion and how I worship I HAVE kept mostly private (well, other then just now).
I don't want to go into detail because as I may have mentioned before, I don't really talk about religion a lot because I think it IS a private matter and often times, unless both sides are truly open to discussion, only breeds a mass amount of contention. That is why I don't discuss my religion here.
Topic Five: America, Humility, and Universal Healthcare.
You must think I'm cocky or something. You obviously haven't read much of my blog because my regulars will let you know I poke fun at myself and my many MANY mishaps all of the time. I am not a graceful person, I often put my foot in my mouth and I believe in personal responsibility and accountability, though I tend to lose things quite frequently. I'm not really an arrogant person, at least I don't see myself as arrogant. What arrogance and cockiness I have I have to cultivate and nurture due to my profession as a Drill Sergeant. And I'm not afraid of the opportunity to kick terrorist behind if I were to be given the chance.
As for Universal Healthcare, yeah, you must be European. I'm all for taking care of people, but there is also the matter of Personal Responsibility. I am all for Preventive Medicine. I think we should educate the masses and let them know, 'hey, stupid, if you do this, you're going to get sick', though it is more common these days with the 'tobacco causes cancer' spiel, and let them deal with the consequences. Of course, there are plenty of people out there who live perfectly healthy lives and still get sick due to matters out of their own hands. The current health care system in America needs to be fixed, but I don't think Universal Healthcare is necessarily the way to go.
But that is another topic for another post that needs plenty space of its own and this one is long enough.
I love how patronizing and condescending this letter is. This dude appears to think he has all the answers and makes it quite apparent that he thinks I'm an idiot. I don't know why I even bothered to give him the benefit of replying. Oh well, if nothing else, you get the chance to see exactly what I wrote too.
On Wednesday my sister called me asking if I could help her with her business. She sells things on eBay, which I know is a very redneck type thing to do, and since I have this nice new camera, she wanted to try it out and see how she took to it, since she's looking at getting one.
Afterwards, she was telling me that there is a restaurant that recently opened in town called the Melting Pot and if I wanted to check it out with her. We called my brother Jared to see if he wanted to come to and the three of us went to this little restaurant without fully realizing what it was exactly.
And me, in my usual dressed up self, complete with flip flops, walked in without a reservation and we found ourselves enjoying a little Fondue in a fairly upscale restaurant.
If I had known what kind of place this was, I would have worn a little makeup. Or something other then a tank top.
Well, since we were there, and we don't do these kinds of things all that often, we went for the gusto and just shared the full blown one between the three of us. We started out with the cheese fondue, which I wasn't to fond of, but was something different then what I'm used to. And then we went into the salad and then the main fondue meal. We got a series of meats to stir up, and had a grand old time trying to keep the meat on the fondue forks.
Have some uncooked Chicken!
That is some good stuff! It is definitely something that you don't go out and eat every other day, this is something to splurge and enjoy every now and again, or special occaisions. Like family get togetherness.
I'm not usually a sweet tooth, but we got the chocolate fondue as well, sharing some of the treats between three people when it is really only meant for two leaves some people missing out, but I was quite fond fo the bananas and strawberries. The rice crispy treats were pretty good too.
Fondue on Fire!
This is my nice expensive camera, yes, but the lens will still blur in poor light, and my sister is the anti-flash user, so when she takes pictures, she only likes to use natural/ambient light.
Later, across the skywalk to get back to our cars, we had a random kodak moment.
Yes, I be a goober. Such a stunning shot of downtown, with me blocking the view with my strange self and my equally strange brother.
Fondue is fun, I would recommend making it a special occaision or something however. It does add up.
To catch you up, I screwed over a shoplifter and lost my job back in January. Because I initially thought I would be mobilizing in March, and I had money in the checking account because I've been fiscally responsible (sort of), I didn't seek out a job right away.
Of course, my mobilization got delayed, the way mobilizations do, but by that time, I didn't think it was right to go hunt for a job that was worth getting only to tell them 'hey, i'm going to kentucky for the summer, see ya', so I just focused on school instead. Only that I had cut back on my schooling before I lost my job because I thought I would be going to Kentucky in March instead of May.
Well, to make a long story short, I've been unemployed since January, doing my one weekend a month thing and living on my military income. And it's been great. A whole lot of doing a whole lot of nothing. Which has left me not having a lot to blog about.
Unfortunately, that all comes to an end. *sighs* I'm gearing up to go to Fort Knox here soon.
With Fort Knox, I don't think its exactly a huge opsec thing if I mention dates, but I'll still try to keep things fairly vague.
Anyway, next week is all about Combat Life Saver course. Where I get to learn all about IVs. I might get it again when I get to Fort Knox, but you can never have to much practice poking people with needles. Of course, that means I'll get poked with needles too.
Well, I'm pretty much on orders until the army decides it doesn't need me anymore, for one thing or another. Which means I'm no longer a vagrant bum. No longer unemployed.
No longer have mass amounts of free time to spend days doing absolutely nothing.
When I get to Knox, that's all going to be bye bye.
You know, I'm looking forward to it.
-Risawn:
# 7:13 PM -
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4.22.2008
Clinton Takes Pennsylvania
Hey, Hillary is still in the race!
This is shaping up to be an interesting political season, I'm rooting for Hillary now. As long as chaos is reigning amongst the Democrats, it keeps things interesting.
I think I need to talk about my weekend in Hell-ena later, or at the very least post up on it on my blog.
Anyway, in other news, I discovered that if I screw up and do something wrong, I dwell on it afterwards. This is both a good thing and a bad thing I have realized. Good thing because I ingrain it into my skull so when I come into a similar circumstance in the future, I won't do it again. Bad in that, well, I am dysthemic, and when I screw up, I tend to dwell on it and get depressed. Just something I have to watch.
It doesn't help when the car decides to have tire troubles on top of everything else and you have a rotten Sunday. I just wanted to get home, but fortunately I'm not out as much money as I thought I was going to be, I managed to get a used tire to get home on and I was able to stay in army lodging for the night. I ended up crashing and getting a good long nap in, when I realized after this weekend I was beat.
-Risawn:
# 4:21 PM -
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4.20.2008
Murphy's Law in Action
My luck is really running.
So, I'm stuck in Helena Montana for the night. I tried to get out this morning, after a rude awakening (I'll talk about that later) but it was a balmy 9 degrees with snow on the ground.
Al Gore lied to me.
As I mentioned before, I thought I was safe on Friday to take off my Snow Tires. This was proven false.
So today, I went out looking for some chains, as I've got three passes to cross in order to get home. And its been snowing all weekend.
My current tires are possibly the worst kind of tires to drive in the snow, or so I discovered as I was driving around town to try to find some chains, only to discover that Walmart considers them out of season, even though this is Montana and apparently the snow is always in season.
But then again, I should have known that I was going to Montana and kept my tires on.
Well, I was directed to find some tire stores because that was likely the only place to find chains.
It being Sunday, everything was closed, and I'm trying to find the location of any place that sells chains on snow covered roads while I'm trying to negotiate from point to point without killing myself or hitting anybody.
Then I discovered that trying to drive in the snow without snow tires skewed my perception of how my car feels to me. When I finally found a place that sells chains, I discovered that I was driving on a flat tire.
So I had to change a flat tire on top of it all, and once I got my spare on, I had to go back to Walmart to get my flat fixed because no other tire place is open on Sunday.
Hanging around Walmart for about twenty minutes, I get an overhead page telling me to make my way to the automotive department to tell me that my tire is unrepairable.
Oh, and I just bought the tire on Friday. So it was brand new. But now I have to find a tire to replace it so I can get home tomorrow so I can take this one back.
Well, I considered it somewhat of a sign that maybe I wasn't meant to go home today. I had an eerie feeling this morning that I needed to stick around. Something was kind of nagging at me. And a couple people who left before me told me the pass was like glass.
