On a recent trip to Butte via Hamilton Montana, I got to hear the magic phrase: RENTAL CORVETTE.

I decided to splurge and rent a car, too hot (and the thunderheads were already forming) and too many hills for the bike. Plus the cheapest motel was 100 bucks (big rodeo in town, the place was packed) but 5 miles away a nice one for 50... so screw it. No courtesy car to swipe so the helpful FBO called the onfield Hertz and I immediately stated in no uncertain terms I wanted the cheapest hunk of junk they had, only problem was they only had one left, but they'd give it to me at the 40 buck econobox rate! 5 minutes later here is what they gave me the keys to, right on the ramp.

Keep in mind my usual ride is a Toyota Yaris subcompact, sure it gets mid 40's MPG and is easier to get in and out of then the 'vette, but for one day I had a ball and the hell with the mileage. This thing would accelerate so fast it'd pull your face back, and cornered with no lean, flat. I returned it the next day with no speeding, reckless driving tickets or damage to it, that's all I'm going to say. Hertz has my infrequent rental car business for life

The 1700' deep copper mine pit near downtown, while circling over it at 10:30 in the morning, I couldn't believe the smooth lift coming from it, I had to keep throttling back more and more to stay at my camera altitude. My theory is it got heated up good early as no breeze down there, "pit lift" I'm calling it, I know if I was a local I'd head over there on every climb out and save some gas. Butte is a great old town, lots of mining history and cool old houses that look like a movie set, it'd been 20 yrs since my last visit. They have a huge used book store I hit to add to my aviation library, one of a kind old ones and fairly priced.
