OPHEIM!!!

So why, one might ask, would we drive clear across the prairies of northern Montana to Glasgow...then drive another 50 miles north almost to the Canadian border, just to visit Opheim, a little farm community with a population today of just 87? Well, I guess it was a personal quest to return to the place where I spent two years in the late 1960s. I was in the Air Force stationed at Opheim AFS, a small, remote radar site manned by 125 airmen and a few civilians. I lived in town, and developed a warm affinity for the townspeople and the town itself.

The Air Force station was closed in the mid 1970s when satellites and GPS made that kind of radar unnecessary. And it did have a sad effect on the town. But Stacy, Mandy and I went out there anyway, and I tried to mentally reconstruct the place from the foundations that were left behind. It was both beautiful and fun out there, as the ghosts of the men I served with still haunted the place. (See photos below.)

Afterwards, we went into town and had lunch at the Outpost Cafe, 92 Main Street, Opheim. It was fantastic - a nicer restaurant than 40+ years ago, and we had an amazing time chatting with the folks. We met a man there who had been raised on a local sheep ranch adjacent to the Air Force station, and had gone on to be President of the University of Montana.  He is retired now, but was visiting Opheim with his family members from Norway.  They were visiting his sister, who still lives in Opheim. They remembered my old landlord, Otto Dahl. He kind of looked after a few of us young airmen who lived hand to mouth, occasionally putting enough propane in our tanks to give us heat until payday. Sadly, Otto died just a few months ago at age 94.

We also remembered Evan Granruud, a man who literally saved my life by rescuing me when I was stranded in my car during a -37 degree flash blizzard and had me stay the night at his ranch. Several years ago he and his wife started a business making and distributing Lefse, a traditional Norwegian potato flatbread. The "Lefse Shack" is actually their private home. We really wanted some. The waitress asked the chef, who was a Granruud, where we could buy lefse. We were directed to "The Co-op" down the street.  We walked down to the Co-op, where the man behind the counter was also related to the Granruuds.  We stocked up!

Beautiful prairie landscape

Welcome to Opheim

Former site of the 799th Radar Squadron. Platform still standing was one of three radar towers.

Me at my former place of business.

So much beauty (x3)

Remnants of the trailer park where I lived for two years

The Outpost Cafe - a totally unexpected surprise.

We stayed in Glasgow at the Shady Rest RV Park.  This sounds like an idyllic little place, but it was a not .  It was filled with oil workers, and Harley Davidson bikes, and was pretty depressing.