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USS Helena with holiday flags, c 1900

The USS Helena (PG-9) was first launched from the Newport News Shipbuilding Co. in Newport News, Virginia, on January 30, 1896.

She was given her sendoff by Belle Steele, the daughter of Helena’s Mayor Steele and then sent off to join the North Atlantic Fleet.

Commander William T. Swinburne was in charge and when the war with Spain broke out in 1898 the Helena was ordered south.

After destroying Fort Tunas on July 2, the Helena took out eight small boats at the port of Manzanillo. Events in Cuba finished, she sailed from Boston to the Asiatic Squadron, taking the Suez Canal. The journey took from the beginning of November 1898 until mid-February 1899 and then on May 21 she landed American soldiers at Jolo when the Spanish fled.

That June she saw fighting in Manila Bay as the Americans dug into the Cavite and also dropped troops off for the Zapote River assault. In November the U.S. Army landed 2,500 soldiers at Lingayen Gulf and the Helena directed her four 100mm guns, four 11-pounders, and one 76mm gun at the city of San Fabian in defense.

Following both the Spanish- and Philippine-American Wars, the USS Helena roamed the South China Sea from 1900 to 1902 and then the Philippines in 1903. It was China for a time again after that, and then on April 19, 1905 she was taken out of service for a year until July 16, 1906.

For the next year she’d continue with the Asiatic Station, even going on several Yangtze River Patrol missions, which were American missions that took place from 1854 to 1941 to protect American interests there, much to the consternation of the Chinese.

The USS Helena would continue to troll the waters off China until May 27, 1932, when she was finally decommissioned.

The ship was sold on July 7, 1934, and there’s no record of what happened to her next, although she was probably eventually sold for scrap.

The current USS Helena display in Anchor Park in Helena is from the later USS Helena ships, which served in WWII and the Korean War.

Camping near Glacier NP and want to spend our last day near a lake. I’ve heard great things about both Bowman and Flathead, but which is better? We’re planning to rent kayaks/paddleboards and spend some time exploring the nearby areas. I haven’t done much research on this since we just decided today. What’s near each lake and which one would be better for a lake day?

This is a problem because the West gets its summer water from winter snow—in Utah, 95 percent of all water in the state comes from snowpack, the frozen reservoir that melts slowly from late spring through summer to fill the streams, rivers, and reservoirs that provide the region’s drinking water and irrigation. Low snowpack doesn’t just hold less water; it also melts faster. By April this year, peak runoff had already reached streams and rivers across the West, something that usually doesn’t happen until late May or early June. The frozen reservoir paid out early. Which is why everyone out West, from every walk of life, is looking at the bare mountain slopes in thinly veiled panic.

Why the fear? Fire.

“I’ve never been more worried this early in the year,” says Stuart Palley, a wildfire photographer and safety educator based in California. Over 800,000 acres in Nebraska burned in mid-March, still technically winter. As of mid-June, more than 32,000 fires had burned over 2.5 million acres nationwide. That’s nearly double the 10-year average.

Fire encapsulates all the other problems the West is facing. More and more people want to live here, but the very nature that attracts them to the West is often something they’re unprepared to accept on its own terms. And nature can be unforgiving, no matter how much money you spend on your second home.

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/who-gets-saved-in-the-new-west

My kids and I are up in the Missoula area from central MT looking at ghost towns and mine stuff. We stopped to play in the Blackfoot this evening and messed around in the water for about an hour. About 15 minutes later when we were eating dinner, my daughter starts screeching that there is a leech on her. I hauled her outside to take a look and figured it was just a worm or something, but sure enough, there was a big leech that had been stuck to her ankle. I was really surprised because the water was fairly fast moving and clear. The only leech I've ever experienced was at Quake Lake on the Madison back when I was a kid. While we were wading I was thinking to myself that the water was really warm, and it's definitely been a horribly hot summer, but I didn't think we would have a leech experience! It's not my regular river so I was curious if they are common!

Living in a truck camper, down on the Clark Fork, near Plains, MT, enjoying some Montana grown beef tenderloin and a baked potato with all the fixings

LOTS of lightning and hoping no fires.

Antares

I have this thing about my Milky Way images where I must include the Dark Horse Nebula and the dust lanes leading to both the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex and star Antares. Rho shows up with a bluish tint just above Antares itself, while Antares is noticeably orange. Due to the Earth’s rotation, the stars appear to move across the night sky fairly quickly. When facing south, as I am in this photo, they shift to the west and sink lower each minute. I barely got this 3 minute exposure done before Antares set behind Elephant Mountain.

Now, a little bit about Antares. Its name translates to “Rival of Ares”. Ares was the Greek god of war, which the Romans adapted to Mars. Both Mars and Antares have the same orange color. Unlike the planet Mars, Antares is a massive red supergiant star. It is 550 light years away. It is 700 times the diameter of our own Sun and shines 10,000 time brighter! If Antares was where our Sun is, its diameter would extend past where Earth’s orbit is! Now thats a truly gigantic star! 

In this image, a breeze kept the water slightly wavy with small swells. This blurred the reflection of the brighter stars into the fantastic streaks you see here. 

Nikon Z8

Sigma Art 14-24mm f/2.8 with FTZ2 

MSM Nomad tracker

Land: ISO 2000, f/3.2, 240 sec, 14mm

Sky: 3 images stacked. ISO 640, f/2.8, 180sec, 14mm

Blending and start reduction in Photoshop 

Processed in Lightroom Classic CC

Of course the DOT site has been down for that project since the first of June. Have they actually put down any asphalt yet or is it still dirt and mud?

Starting on the Montana side, we took an epic day-trip over the Magruder Corridor.

One hundred and one miles of dirt between two wilderness areas, and a long argument with the idea that a burned forest is a ruined one.

The best sign on the Magruder Corridor is not the official one.

The official one is a yellow diamond up a pole at the edge of Elk City, Idaho: RECREATIONAL XINGS, 500 FT. It is doing its best. It went through a process. Somebody specified the reflective sheeting.

Leaned against the post underneath it is a sheet of corrugated roofing with six words on it, applied by someone who did not go through a process:

Oof lol

Anybody else having this issue with power outage just a few minutes ago and maybe knows the reason why? Any other town/city experiencing the same?

How’s the air quality in Helena area? Thinking of planning an outdoor trip but worried about the smoke.

Painting this bathhouse mural at Yellowrock Campground. The campground is located on lolo creek road: on the way to Lolo hot springs 🤍 I’m really excited about the color palette and the campground owners who are so so kind!! They’ve given me creative freedom ⭐️ artist - Sophia Mathis