tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64612732461337439302024-03-19T04:55:58.891-06:00anecdote of noteLetters from a Traveling Kate.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09977091975104715809noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-55558695208932251982012-06-04T20:03:00.000-06:002013-03-23T17:26:58.114-06:00the north atlantic ocean makes me a little too pensive<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFyONImpFgBgqa6hW7DQ5uv9KTPEtW10n9xiN2p_2aiLy8DhLSEU-GdZPHEKhE8rlXPbsB2Q7J4MJ7L8jn1WuCLVZTry9Ywv9UKM1o4X5eJKMyZIfidiViT6l6Zi2KHynYF_lRzE18go0/s1600/ticketcoinbasilica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFyONImpFgBgqa6hW7DQ5uv9KTPEtW10n9xiN2p_2aiLy8DhLSEU-GdZPHEKhE8rlXPbsB2Q7J4MJ7L8jn1WuCLVZTry9Ywv9UKM1o4X5eJKMyZIfidiViT6l6Zi2KHynYF_lRzE18go0/s400/ticketcoinbasilica.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's on a darkened plane, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">stiffening corpse </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">behind 5x4 pixelated screen, that it strikes me: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I live in the future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Outside, the same sailor-charted stars shine as we hurtle along - 600 miles an hour, in </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">temperatures that could kill a man. We make a</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> year of antiquity's journey in the space of a television episode while the stranger beside me is in e</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">arbuds, listening to another time's even. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is a world of genius trifles: ADD-dulled miracles and frivol magic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Great Scott. What am I doing here? Here, in the future? </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB-KxLHEbXyhXfiYqZmDEcfAz7oSdPEsuNes1ks8qRlTwLjIfHWjl9Rc7gJYHMZi7QEKj50X98ZPDIIsyftvv83ys7lWyL4I7HnT7B2AZuBLb63dHaB457vrBlIWTfhChbSATpYzaU2E/s1600/cotswoldsticket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB-KxLHEbXyhXfiYqZmDEcfAz7oSdPEsuNes1ks8qRlTwLjIfHWjl9Rc7gJYHMZi7QEKj50X98ZPDIIsyftvv83ys7lWyL4I7HnT7B2AZuBLb63dHaB457vrBlIWTfhChbSATpYzaU2E/s640/cotswoldsticket.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;">So much of travel is wanting to see something past. But w</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;">e wanderers can never truly see what we would like to see. All we can do is scrape at shadows of it - </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;">in a museum or an antique shop, deluding ourselves with flashes. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;">Rarely are we satisfied with </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;">our</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;"> moment - preferring instead to dwell on someone else's. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">All tourism is nostalgia. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">All nostalgia is tourism. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Is all travel just an attempt to escape our own present? Our own futures? </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Is </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">my </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">whole trip just an attempt to escape? </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am going to the future of another place - if not civilization's cradle, then its boarding school. But do I really want to be <i>there</i>, or would I rather have gone to the past?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Does it even matter? Even if I'd have rather traveled to 1964, I can't. Cosmically and historically speaking, how often do we end up where and when and with what we want? Just about never.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But this time, this place is just the moment I want - because I want to spend it with these two. I want this trip. This life. This morning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Outside the window is a quiet dawn, but an electric one. London, here I come. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5n7l5kuxv2UyiDglRb8k5LlCAsAULlIVB0Cl-W_FpS73dSlzqnBapzN9tXo9zGxmKFS3dyPJadBwhDruNqqd72nIvqCITjbdUss5Mc6Y0H0rwUgwSfapwfQnC-8E2Qyn8jAo-FroSTXQ/s1600/SAM_3531.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5n7l5kuxv2UyiDglRb8k5LlCAsAULlIVB0Cl-W_FpS73dSlzqnBapzN9tXo9zGxmKFS3dyPJadBwhDruNqqd72nIvqCITjbdUss5Mc6Y0H0rwUgwSfapwfQnC-8E2Qyn8jAo-FroSTXQ/s400/SAM_3531.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3Right about there.54.367758524068385 -11.2535.188604524068381 -51.6796875 73.546912524068389 29.1796875tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-9313284640471798322012-04-07T22:50:00.000-06:002013-03-23T17:26:58.119-06:00K: Did you know that sharks eat their own siblings in utero?!<br />
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K: What?<br />
<br />
K: YES. A shark will have two wombs, and one shark fetus eats all the other shark feti in its womb. Then two are born.<br />
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K: That's... I was reading about wax museums, and you had to bring up Shark Cannibalism.<br />
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K: Wax museums are just as if not <i>more </i>creepy than sharks eating their siblings.<br />
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K: You know, you're right.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-2572683368685852372011-10-03T14:56:00.002-06:002013-03-23T17:31:09.550-06:00an evening with the bennions<br />
K: No, that was the one about the Irish eating their children.<br />
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J: Eugh!<br />
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K: He was a satirist.<br />
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M: Meaning he wrote satire, not that he was part goat.<br />
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D: Satirist vs. satyr-ous? Have you thought about this one before?<br />
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M: I work with eighth-graders. It actually comes up all the time.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-75556342766940494962011-09-21T17:31:00.000-06:002011-11-19T15:26:25.669-07:00west<div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I've always dreaded the "Where are you from?" question.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In an eight-year span, I've moved ten times. I've lived in four states and two countries, attending six different school districts before graduating from high school. In all actuality, I don't know where I'm from. But no one particularly cares to hear the whole convoluted history of my residency, so I usually just say, "Utah."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then, the other night, I had an epiphany. Debating idioms, someone told me, "We say it differently back East. <i>You </i>come from the West." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And a voice inside me said,<i> yes</i>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://bennion.org/wp-content/gallery/bennion/samhome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="http://bennion.org/wp-content/gallery/bennion/samhome.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /><a href="http://bennion.org/wp-content/gallery/bennion/l-r-israel-bennion-elizabeth-harker-bennion-emma-bennion-lindsay-rebecca-ann-bennion-sharp-david-bennion-in-back-24-july-1933.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="http://bennion.org/wp-content/gallery/bennion/l-r-israel-bennion-elizabeth-harker-bennion-emma-bennion-lindsay-rebecca-ann-bennion-sharp-david-bennion-in-back-24-july-1933.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG5D55kkGASuAiAdSuDBrehPU8zb6Uy0aGJaVsanFTPOKvVoGTirIk_be1SWzWhJavHOk51pe2AJQGSf0RqpxIUPCX3Ja4I6sG6lKBXAsyVTKiClvUvQR7HoIU6SurbXi6AMjUc8bW_7I/s1600/P5280092.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG5D55kkGASuAiAdSuDBrehPU8zb6Uy0aGJaVsanFTPOKvVoGTirIk_be1SWzWhJavHOk51pe2AJQGSf0RqpxIUPCX3Ja4I6sG6lKBXAsyVTKiClvUvQR7HoIU6SurbXi6AMjUc8bW_7I/s400/P5280092.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I come from Uintah cattle-ranches and immigrant football clubs.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I come from potato farmers and Mexican polygamist-colonists. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am the product of fat handcart girls and hard-headed Danes, generations of half-mad people carving out a living in the blizzarding desert.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I come from ideals of freedom and diversity and friendliness. I come from ruggedly beautiful country.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I come from the place that people risk their lives to come to, where dreams shine brighter than the journey and are sometimes never realized.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am from the West, the American West. And, for the first time in my life, I am happy to be so. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Where I'm from isn't who I am. But, at the same time, it is. I had to come to Wyoming to brush the Western chip off my shoulder and learn to love my big-sky, laborious heritage.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Still spitting politics. Still feminizing. Still me. But I'm now more at ease with my roots and myself. And it's a good place to be.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-11484545035942213502011-09-16T20:21:00.000-06:002013-03-23T17:31:31.072-06:00wildlife guide: cougar/puma/mountain lion/panther/catamount/painter/screamer/sneak cat/deer tiger/long tail/catawampus/fire cat/quinquajou edition, ten fun and/or gruesome facts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">1. My roommate's father's chicken was killed by the only one in North Carolina.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2. On a wildlife field trip in sixth grade, the caged cougar <i>meowed</i>. Hannah Gunther was there. She can attest.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">3. They are very difficult to taxiderm.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdD84Ufnz7qlKKtJ074rR2gGahj5Rg6XhqXVl8njLxpdzl0BD39PdYMcPupco_nCQePnwNUHwy_z2VNyi75E0YaKzWj03aZ_FqW31cEeyzctaLWEqPldMnO1wfCSM3KOZACAlfTZzq-hE/s1600/SAM_0691.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622696867100907458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdD84Ufnz7qlKKtJ074rR2gGahj5Rg6XhqXVl8njLxpdzl0BD39PdYMcPupco_nCQePnwNUHwy_z2VNyi75E0YaKzWj03aZ_FqW31cEeyzctaLWEqPldMnO1wfCSM3KOZACAlfTZzq-hE/s320/SAM_0691.JPG" style="height: 200px; margin-top: 0px; width: 200px;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Or so it would seem.)</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">4. They are said to inhabit Yellowstone but no one ever sees them because they are too stealthy. They are the ninjas of North America.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjicJl5z3Xo_pK3gLAU94cNqXg-neWYATm1edR0CfQjA0vCcaqC1yAaYyGLmXoaYHmSwQiRWmdSecqY1KYRVJZybGuYGA6YMnnbLPJl7kCai8gS_UXTBsJBQiUVDWe5pyH0zE2krXnCcds/s1600/panther.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">5. They have the widest range of any animal on the continent, from the Yukon to the Andes. Some people try to distinguish them ("Well, Holmes, that is an south-by-south <i>eastern</i> western wildcat"), but they are deceiving themselves. No matter what you call one, it is tantamount to a catamount.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">6.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjicJl5z3Xo_pK3gLAU94cNqXg-neWYATm1edR0CfQjA0vCcaqC1yAaYyGLmXoaYHmSwQiRWmdSecqY1KYRVJZybGuYGA6YMnnbLPJl7kCai8gS_UXTBsJBQiUVDWe5pyH0zE2krXnCcds/s1600/panther.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="51" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614187559627385762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjicJl5z3Xo_pK3gLAU94cNqXg-neWYATm1edR0CfQjA0vCcaqC1yAaYyGLmXoaYHmSwQiRWmdSecqY1KYRVJZybGuYGA6YMnnbLPJl7kCai8gS_UXTBsJBQiUVDWe5pyH0zE2krXnCcds/s200/panther.jpg" style="display: block; height: 83px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" width="200" /></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">7. They hold the world title for Animal With Most Names in A Single Language. There are 40+. I was going to put them all in the title, but my interface balked.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">8. My neighbor once hit one with his car. (!!!)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">9. Roommate's father's chicken's death notwithstanding, they have been declared extinct back east.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">10. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd3h6OEFGVE9RJBhWupHbxPuUGDPUrflKQpec5Gn81v_mhG4Mbo4WUeVw-nD7EZ0xkgKLP2PtI1LzosGuNDm1aLoZP4diLzQl0xJjmU2z7KwxyhgnNQfwSj7t98S-kfZ0cLJIXgGp1Oxo/s1600/cougs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd3h6OEFGVE9RJBhWupHbxPuUGDPUrflKQpec5Gn81v_mhG4Mbo4WUeVw-nD7EZ0xkgKLP2PtI1LzosGuNDm1aLoZP4diLzQl0xJjmU2z7KwxyhgnNQfwSj7t98S-kfZ0cLJIXgGp1Oxo/s400/cougs.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They are <i>beautiful</i>.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-47303983174437492622011-09-10T19:57:00.000-06:002011-09-10T19:57:09.015-06:00oh, mountain-locked gem of the entire world!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-78728924080771298322011-09-08T22:49:00.000-06:002013-03-23T17:32:23.775-06:00that day when i drove through grand teton national park and left my camera at home and then cried<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It was beautiful.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-56672179378737525212011-07-15T10:51:00.006-06:002011-07-15T10:59:27.481-06:00the bandwidthThe bandwidth has plunged from slim to none, and although I am assailed by adventures and phone calls, Blogger and Global Gossip conspire against me in an instance of Internet sabotage. I am buffeted by buffering, and though there is much I would like to share, perhaps my best bet is to nurse my Internet wounds and sally forth in a few weeks when I return to civilization. Sincerest apologies, but S'will, ham radio codes, obstinacy, and thunderstorm stories will have to wait.<br /><br />Eich ffrind,<br /><br />KateUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-63345529388436966772011-07-06T21:08:00.005-06:002011-07-06T21:13:15.247-06:00my job<div><br /></div><div>K: Okay. What is the reason for this cancellation?</div><div><br /></div><div>G: I heard it's colder than hell up there!</div><div><br /></div><div>K: Well, most things are colder than hell.</div><div><br /></div><div>G: ......</div><div><br /></div><div>K: I imagine.</div><div><br /></div><div>G: Well, it's too cold for us.</div><div><br /></div><div>K: All right. Let me give you your cancellation number.</div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-81133953710568119142011-06-20T21:51:00.013-06:002011-06-21T21:29:48.508-06:00i've been dead for decades, my dear, but if you insist<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPedB5C10I_Qq0IMBQlRDXZzim-9CAYTtfK_MGhsfSlzIqSm3hYw3muikfPGFDRDmfDWCY4XMH56huFkcmm_dmBz4LIUEN_60Qut_V1CEIQppEymtXF1Bp9eNICNVhfvBsgitgZ7h5mkE/s1600/SAM_0581.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><div style="text-align: left;">I would like to introduce you to the man I want to marry. Unfortunately, he died before I was born.</div><div><br /></div><div>His name is John Muir. Here he is:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Muir_portrait_1872.jpg/220px-Muir_portrait_1872.jpg" border="0" alt="" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 220px; height: 308px; " /></span></div><div>I picked up a collection of his Yellowstone musings my first week here. He <i>loved </i>Yellowstone, also the West, and comes closer to doing its beauty justice with mere words than any other prose I've read.</div><div><br /></div><div>Take, for example, what he says about our geyser basins:</div><div><br /></div><div>"In these natural laboratories one needs stout faith to feel at ease. The ground sounds hollow underfoot, and the awful subterranean thunder shakes one's mind as the ground is shaken. In the solemn gloom, the geysers, dimly visible, look like monstrous dancing ghosts, and their wild songs and earthquake thunder replying to the storms overhead seem doubly terrible, as if divine government were at an end.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPedB5C10I_Qq0IMBQlRDXZzim-9CAYTtfK_MGhsfSlzIqSm3hYw3muikfPGFDRDmfDWCY4XMH56huFkcmm_dmBz4LIUEN_60Qut_V1CEIQppEymtXF1Bp9eNICNVhfvBsgitgZ7h5mkE/s400/SAM_0581.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620876505379586082" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div>"But the trembling hills keep their places. The sky clears, the rosy dawn is reassuring, and up comes the sun like a god, pouring his faithful beams across the mountains and forest, lighting each peak and tree and ghastly geyser alike, and shining into the eyes of the reeking springs, clothing them with rainbow light, and dissolving the seeming chaos of darkness into varied forms of harmony."</div><div><div><br /></div><div>What a treat! An absolute feast of words. He gives good advice as well:</div></div><div><br /></div><div>"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grass and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."</div><div><br /></div><div>Everything the man writes is like this: informative and rich and rhythmic and deep. Friends, if you come to Yellowstone, read some John Muir,</div><div><br /></div><div>"Then, with fresh heart, go down to your work, and whatever your fate, under whatever ignorance or knowledge you may afterward chance to suffer, you will remember these fine, wild views, and look back with joy to your wanderings in the blessed old Yellowstone Wonderland."</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-82822506244857287812011-06-14T22:42:00.034-06:002011-08-16T15:50:17.734-06:00cowboy convert<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQNsK4Hur_aatYxmu2bBhMZQKlB2xDtgfErpo68a8rdLTWCrHfYN2VaXNDtYosOoSdmQRHgEmCP2excgFR7hYlamA2MdC4YL0_NxLwiCZHiKj1OK4DwiJJz-2fxwo5qJMlC4LZZy9Fs1g/s1600/SAM_1509.JPG"></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGJE6_hlSSHItOhA9Pp4EMBX3hwS5nBTm5ra7juGEbm6WzCUhU3gvs9ok56kQwXrVwSDY3KnLwKxbm-EmQuaR2q9uMbNPE1o6w2kCWGevF70I12wZ6L-F0NhlxZYmS_cywmOgYYsiXTSY/s1600/SAM_1509.JPG"></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6gvVr4VAhXFWOlfTDaquLWzlLr7SJXUNTKtUwCXkhwdX-58dpA522X_Oqf8ax_XfgERLjhJqtHqnEOO8gSFp5UZwYIXCpNb6ufydINUDCaoAxbF_AiMVPR5QBfZwKqxw1jSZ4Zk0WT0/s1600/SAM_1532.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 305px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6gvVr4VAhXFWOlfTDaquLWzlLr7SJXUNTKtUwCXkhwdX-58dpA522X_Oqf8ax_XfgERLjhJqtHqnEOO8gSFp5UZwYIXCpNb6ufydINUDCaoAxbF_AiMVPR5QBfZwKqxw1jSZ4Zk0WT0/s400/SAM_1532.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618999273494445682" border="0" /></a>
<br />The Old West cookout at Roosevelt Lodge is the most popular activity in Yellowstone. On the phone, guests consistently ask me to book them a seat, and often hang up disappointed, as it sells out every night of the summer.
<br /><div>
<br /></div>This puzzled me for the longest time. I could not understand why someone would shell out $60 a head to ride in a wagon, eat potato salad, and listen to some guy drawl. I could not understand the popularity of a cowboy fantasy. It seemed the ultimate tourist trap.<div>
<br /></div><div>On Friday, however, Reservations and Front Desk staff carpooled out to Rosie, as the locals call it, to experience the activity we are told to recommend and give the staff a practice run. I had a change of heart.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQNsK4Hur_aatYxmu2bBhMZQKlB2xDtgfErpo68a8rdLTWCrHfYN2VaXNDtYosOoSdmQRHgEmCP2excgFR7hYlamA2MdC4YL0_NxLwiCZHiKj1OK4DwiJJz-2fxwo5qJMlC4LZZy9Fs1g/s400/SAM_1509.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618999846966209346" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 327px; height: 400px;" border="0" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigRIc39vvlRqMrCuj8u3uP_oSp5-cbG2pADom3L13ITEXaSTelU2icWsmXoV4VmR0zsqtsStH9DhtLd0HuXXbMV3tBRN8fnrgo3nYckCAgPOfZ3X0RMeMVr2EkBjW4QouDdBWWEVkm-D4/s400/SAM_1537.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619001357286758658" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 322px;" border="0" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_eElTNU-NL8pnJ4ksmiqzzYpe1S7CJNJuzINgR8m2_kp0PzTBegzWCGqHtkfVFuLM5d0asDkC7lBUXJqnE8-V1PQyl3Q1syyz_E5lW-EtrOlgXFSbJLtn1hqaiYQfNPrVj1pDlSfUDVE/s400/SAM_1525.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619003106677746834" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" border="0" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);">
<br /></span></div><div>There is something so marvelous about those wagons, rolling through runoff streams under an open sky. The teams of beautiful horses, the imperfect reality of their sun-bleached mane and jangling leather straps and rippling muscle beneath. Their satisfying names: Tango, Oscar, Cash, Felix*. The charms of young ruddy wranglers from across the country, helpful and sweet and genuinely enamored with their job and this place. Rolling across the valley, grass and sky and bison all around.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcHcPvZhlJJgwa_voo2QOoEX9TfNdYIdDqzSzYNvow8aV_eYBiOA4LqH9F9tdij7Lrplg8x6FO8oFhGERfgV1Y-Iw555o10bRXpIvaCQmGoFKVRsN16-R8tQZcqqMjd2OnG5MBInfnnoE/s400/SAM_1542.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619001366991969586" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" border="0" /></span></div></div><div>It makes one feel happy and clear and alive to do this, to get in touch with another time, when the pure unspoilt experience of the wilderness was all-encompassing. When this was life: sweat and hard work and fresh air and weather. This is why people visit this place by the millions each year and the cookout books up. This is why people fall in love with the West - we are hungry for a taste of the tangible.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ6ftoyJj9h8mIBT9XhMZkUz8hQLs5rSo-gaCbnKNKyxHWRcaUiBWZ6fZEEyfC0TIDS6fLQqnB4banAgEYjskL5Z3xd2cKBwOLTnuCCskdmVtFOZizfSBXliVjfREjFiGiEV3lDiT7o4E/s200/SAM_1552.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618998145087749026" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiomSxcDtSMmZBLHvfj9-sgMU4KeYVBlalGrsCmh9nGOrRoNUfEBG1ncPUxQOVepPyaBDyrOvvDaXUdynxF3YSDcSeQH_tdtg7CIqoTldMBREiAXxqM75PObFKFM6RD4VY3wPNSEVT7Wnc/s200/SAM_1555.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618998523866362162" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCdBOZQcudmyY62JusTzUt8fqyVCOmV23vVl_ZhEBLeNQkz23CVlnhjNfPQaa1-MBmbZJEX9_0r_6EpiU0EHhocG6kORL9vdbiYAKG9-ib847MId50w1-LmQNf0xoNjF05ViUZ28dN8CY/s200/SAM_1548.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618997919202184850" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 148px;" border="0" /></span></div><div>
<br /></div><div>2000-pound Belgians pulled us out to to Pleasant Valley, a piney, grassy nook that swallowed 200 of us whole. We milled about waiting for the dinner bell, marveling at the loveliness of the scene, the abundance of the sustenance** to come, our luck to be part of it all.
<br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOhyBfJdPGUm_I0XuLWAB3LyUvXAXrm-AKvgei5a3YvACgk9hSN6LLL6RRzEV3P4R7ynPz3m54jFLrOg_ZTDnYcn9KVf0NB2vv4uxzG2heQc06und6w8sOvbUi8PQuObCqWC2C-mRFns/s1600/SAM_1577.JPG"></a></div><div>
<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcH-RxA9mj4hXjwqZQn6-_GZl0MYjtWzop6KI_L11odw4acIaLa_9Adv0VJ3M1c8SJg_l5w5SHKk3Xd3Gm4aoXcwN4tPTR1u1eDHgDoSHr0V-9B7CQjJXYokXdn62MKxfBu9NQQu7SLEg/s400/SAM_1554.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618997191514932354" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 167px;" border="0" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);">
<br /></span></div><div>As for the designated cowboy entertainer, this was not some drawling imposter. This was The Man. The Man, a Genuine Cowboy from Texas, seventy or so with a sweat-stained Stetson brim, the Voice of the Frontier. He sat up there with his baby Taylor and microphone, a deep, gentle source of croonery, playing simple melodies and songs not-quite-forgotten.
<br />
<br /><div>Listening to him, I was nostalgic for a time and experiences I had never had: a world where dusty horses were comrades for weeks under starry skies, a world of chivalry and simplicity. It was magical and beautiful and so terribly happy and sad.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Sentimental? Yes. Romanticized? Of course. But what good is history, the progression of time, if we can't long for the "good old days," another era, another life lost? The cowboy mythology deserves to be celebrated and mourned, and there is no one who does it better than Bob Sawyer. Legend.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Too soon, I was filled. Too soon, the sun set. Too soon, the spell ceased and it was time to go home. "Easy, boys," our driver repeatedly said. Our horses were eager to get back.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit_dtLnRiOa8XcHmpR7MZkHy4vNURoLa6O3TZn7B8Gy0GN8H8uYv3ux2ieaB0KaFlGQhtU3E2c8wJrk6ym1TUHzFFVnxNt6BTTWEWoRYlMajCUPDhtlxczM3Fc9COdd9-QuLaMP0MAEig/s400/SAM_1513.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619004662270748354" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" border="0" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);">
<br /></span></div><div>I wasn't. I wanted to stay here forever - in this summer evening between times, with this blend of rugged comforts that stirred and soothed my soul. I wanted to wrangle at Rosie, not answer the phones at Mammoth.</div></div><div>
<br /></div><div>But, here I am. With my cubicle and headset and $7.50 an hour. So I'll sell this activity, all right. I'll encourage you to roam the Yellowstone, to eat outdoors, to saddle up and go riding. I urge you to listen to Cash and Autry and Sawyer. I'll tell you to lay in the grass, to hit the trail, to put the pot on the fire and listen to the old wrangler's stories. Even if the Old West cookout is sold out from now til the end of time, I want you to take a guitar out under the stars and never, ever let that cowboy dream die.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOhyBfJdPGUm_I0XuLWAB3LyUvXAXrm-AKvgei5a3YvACgk9hSN6LLL6RRzEV3P4R7ynPz3m54jFLrOg_ZTDnYcn9KVf0NB2vv4uxzG2heQc06und6w8sOvbUi8PQuObCqWC2C-mRFns/s400/SAM_1577.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618996935144460338" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 243px;" border="0" /></span></div></div><div>
<br /></div><div>Love.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div>
<br /></div><div>*CORNBREAD. So buttery yellow and soft and crumbly and just the right spot between savory and sweet. I'm marrying cornbread. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>**Felix IS a great name. For the record.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);">
<br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-67741885016784364602011-06-11T19:13:00.005-06:002011-06-11T20:37:38.783-06:00WORTH IT<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">Pumping away my paycheck in Gardiner, I stumbled across a marvel. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">A miracle. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">A sweet milky dream in recyclable foil. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">Purple ice creaminess encased in chocolate graham--an eatable catalyst for world peace. The label calls it Wilcoxson's Huckleberry Ice Cream Sandwich.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">Friends, this was <i>only </i>the best thing ever. <i>Only </i>God's Gift to Montana. <i>Only </i>79 cents. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">I wept for joy, and again when it was gone.</span></span></div><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >With one bite, I was swept away in a New Life Plan: marriage to Wilcoxson, whoever he is. And his cow. We'd have fat Violet Beauregarde-esque children, churning up ice cream and gathering huckleberries and rearing bison while we're at it. We would live in Lolo, Montana. Mr. Muir would come back from the dead and sit on our front porch eating the stuff, watching the bison graze peacefully and using his most beautiful words to describe the scene.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; " ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" ></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">One day I'd be killed by a mob of angry anti-bison activists. Authorities would find me dead and tubby, purple-stained lips in a contented smile. At my funeral, they'd release a thousand lavender balloons, and in lieu of flowers, my widower (Wilcoxson) and widow (the cow) would accept donations toward a cure for lactose intolerance.</span></span></div></div></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; " ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; " >Forget college. Forget career plans. Forget writing and dating and money. The important thing in life is huckleberry ice cream, and a life with more purple is a life well-lived.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-65421504338302355522011-05-31T19:58:00.019-06:002011-08-16T15:54:11.895-06:00"sorry, i forgot my bison teeth were in there."<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzk2CpNO1GIBLLCiFR0x-3Wynqtu4swUfiTteg3GvXLthu5_Wb0GForgZoelGZi1EPZ3Kjy40pJehCHGa6HU5DNhpunSr4Nwg9fePgC3aNa_2sfvIWWNUwxhLf1tzrYeChc6bKcPYkBmo/s1600/SAM_1227.JPG"></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-OOvZvEi2AsVhhtjCWt8WTrRBjJa1yEm6TNUk6twJUgPQ7vSIhgN-20lCQqz4W08DGBO1zu9F6gt5-ljs96iwO-47mpoJ-qpf8ZxSbu4qWSCXkbfpxDXyKGRNKp_Gr_lhnLpS7fTIhM/s1600/SAM_1230.JPG"></a><div style="text-align: left;">I've been so busy wrangling octopus-headsets that I forgot to tell you about Bozeman!</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Bozeman! Bozeman is a marvelous town. The citizenry numbers about 40,000. It is just the rural/antiquitous/recreative/chic kind of demo you'd expect from the fourth-largest city in Montana. It names its schools after Native Americans, and according to the ChamCom website, it has forty Historic Properties and nine Historic Districts.</div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);">
<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3SrxCgbMEq8Bwbfz_eDha0ZCh1YXw0Ww5rvKgmh412VB8so6PKYIsdioStMcLf2QBAtAktYrp4jiVcc61HNxlchOQzo9-zmfpI4aLivxfDxIUOQIMk53a-5RExSsUm425i_44NhnxJA/s200/SAM_1196.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613096100797981266" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1vMVNOVH1sGJCcaIJGpoDrc2v8RWuTbnls3AxEmiCzsbfqSjlRTy_aoHAWdL7rZajmeEjnEhWhrA0cIF2vAOqJKuKrBQJOzwPlHP6G-qhXo2OaotfDr3eldrD8TwAcHA1Rt5s2GXbbeA/s200/SAM_1187.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613091085721129042" style="text-align: left; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXWlt0HbewJ1RrnbldMs6qsdtG_xAX_5ftDqst02hUFOkFhqYF1aQOb72XPmoTolnJEcO3PpZYGwJPiPMab9q_SqBbt3kQfOxZen63h_OnkTzupXj7QLZUJl2Z-AwF6rMWNpFhZGGrMw/s200/SAM_1215.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613092315434364178" style="text-align: right; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></div><div style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">
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<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br /></div></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The Cardis and I went to Bozeman because in a severe packing misstep, I packed all of one skirt when I came to Mammoth. So, I drove the eighty-six point six miles to Bozeman in search of some churchier attire*.</span></div></span></span></span></div></div><div>
<br /></div><div>Thus I learned that Montana has absolutely zero sales tax. None at all! The tag price is the actual price! It's like a miracle. I have no idea how they fund government projects or anything, and at the end of the day I'm frankly glad I live in the Wyo where we have fire stations, but whatevs.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><i>Anyway</i>. Fiscal duty to the Montanan economy complete, I drove to Gallatin Historical Society HQ. (To get a graveyard guide, naturally. These old settler towns have fantastic headstones.)
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<br />However, I was distracted from my quest by the alluring Gallatin Pioneer Museum. They've taken that old Bozeman prison and filled it with HISTORY: replicas and archives and heirlooms that Bozemen and women donate and occasionally ask for back and then the display is ruined but the museumaires are too nice to complain. And also it has a bookstore, with such literary gems as <i>Cowboys, Mountain Men and Grizzly Bears: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments of the American West</i> or <i>Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles</i>. For $5 you can have Lars the intern take you all around the place and share interesting facts. So I did! </div><div>
<br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSdoBfZcWs2gfnyseulidNmJ9n0aYs2f7qKe-Pcs0jRkBAl-QF1mSHM9X1F2_I2EasEifj6CaOXJK8rlPnYUSeEkm6TvSicP2XRJeeGfRMOZLG-GRK_zIHfUtaPeLfYcLDKyfA13U2seM/s1600/SAM_1143.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSdoBfZcWs2gfnyseulidNmJ9n0aYs2f7qKe-Pcs0jRkBAl-QF1mSHM9X1F2_I2EasEifj6CaOXJK8rlPnYUSeEkm6TvSicP2XRJeeGfRMOZLG-GRK_zIHfUtaPeLfYcLDKyfA13U2seM/s200/SAM_1143.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613094425132277138" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUlNtedcMPh7oV9m_oUwbi1ZtNkRI-7ErS6U3Ge1iEVNm28Z36cpT0K_rEhih15ugalWyXm-ukymV7zQ1W21x8Gc1fWewlezUoU98wd5bnhS8AZnMMqsdKZ-Ez4lfZHcF9V2E6C4hNvJU/s200/SAM_1174.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613094649178996882" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXRsK4DgV77cziapt_E5GGp4yERUVXn_JFy-Vj08jxwCXf2ukBoZmJjYrLXC8ddYL_MFR-ov5loxBT5iggGbbRqQ0A470ExCtqKn0jmJfUVDSci6co8XNeVonor9HLtrCaKcDlsxHDkIg/s200/SAM_1144.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613094548489770290" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></span>
<br /></div><div>And I learned about coal and coke and the opium habits of Bozeman's Chinese citizenry. I learned about John Bozeman, womanizing schmuck, and his mysterious death and the prison's only hanging. I learned about the Pepperbox revolver firing six shots at a time and calf-weaners and whiskey stills and the perils of using gasoline to make coffee. I learned about Alice Sisty's Roman jump and Babyland magazine and the mountain collapse that buried a city. I learned that Gary Cooper graduated from the school across the street and who in the Sam Hill Gallatin is. I learned to be envious that my ancestors were so peaceful, industrious, and polygamous while their Montanan counterparts were having a rollicking time up north. I learned about prize-winning cows and mattress-soaked mortar and the intricacies of modern quilting. Lars, you gave an excellent tour. I was enchanted with the place.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>At length I took my postcards and grave-guide and bid the historians farewell, and departed to get lost and soaked and footsore in a dewy cemetery. If you have a million dollars in 1880, you get a headstone as big as a house, and if you're a foreign indigent, you don't get one at all.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>After a while it started to get late, so I started back, racing the train to Livingston. On a whim, I stopped at a so-called-trading post. It was flanked by goats out back and Chinese-British-Columbians having noodles in their van out front, so I thought it might be open.</div><div>
<br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzk2CpNO1GIBLLCiFR0x-3Wynqtu4swUfiTteg3GvXLthu5_Wb0GForgZoelGZi1EPZ3Kjy40pJehCHGa6HU5DNhpunSr4Nwg9fePgC3aNa_2sfvIWWNUwxhLf1tzrYeChc6bKcPYkBmo/s1600/SAM_1227.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzk2CpNO1GIBLLCiFR0x-3Wynqtu4swUfiTteg3GvXLthu5_Wb0GForgZoelGZi1EPZ3Kjy40pJehCHGa6HU5DNhpunSr4Nwg9fePgC3aNa_2sfvIWWNUwxhLf1tzrYeChc6bKcPYkBmo/s200/SAM_1227.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613098469267034002" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiYwPMIwE6Ge7Ub8KUYd8ibn8qiF9PbXMYZwA1MLI-0R1-j-H8ZgqdHGd7VvSEJzjv2vi1w8aEgZJP2RgmqeN7sMPzScY0Bun0Z_8LGuATCCdjEVrVHHkzjYCgFr3Q4g35aSJW-LXJIaU/s1600/SAM_1236.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiYwPMIwE6Ge7Ub8KUYd8ibn8qiF9PbXMYZwA1MLI-0R1-j-H8ZgqdHGd7VvSEJzjv2vi1w8aEgZJP2RgmqeN7sMPzScY0Bun0Z_8LGuATCCdjEVrVHHkzjYCgFr3Q4g35aSJW-LXJIaU/s200/SAM_1236.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613098193357233650" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-OOvZvEi2AsVhhtjCWt8WTrRBjJa1yEm6TNUk6twJUgPQ7vSIhgN-20lCQqz4W08DGBO1zu9F6gt5-ljs96iwO-47mpoJ-qpf8ZxSbu4qWSCXkbfpxDXyKGRNKp_Gr_lhnLpS7fTIhM/s1600/SAM_1230.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-OOvZvEi2AsVhhtjCWt8WTrRBjJa1yEm6TNUk6twJUgPQ7vSIhgN-20lCQqz4W08DGBO1zu9F6gt5-ljs96iwO-47mpoJ-qpf8ZxSbu4qWSCXkbfpxDXyKGRNKp_Gr_lhnLpS7fTIhM/s200/SAM_1230.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613098335497700066" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" border="0" /></a>'Twas. Turns out, they had an amazing assemblage of antlers, stoves, goat scat, beads, bones, pelts, carvings, dagger-sheaths, jewelry, furniture, and taxidermy--a veritable poacher's paradise. I stroked bison pelts and fingered elk-teeth and wandered around in a transportative haze, eventually stepping through a simple kitchen with kettle, cot, and Dell to chat up the owner. He was a strikingly silver-bearded man of unknown history and name, tanning a bison hide, beloved goats nearby to pat and to scold. I handed him some cash and let him get back to his work, pocketing a mouthful of bison molars and waving to the CBCs on the way out, marveling at the day I had had.
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<br />*And, after being helped by an abundance of teens with lip studs, I bought some. In the form of a maxi-dress. This is a thing that I highly recommend. I feel like an Austenian hippie-heroine. Plus, I don't have to razor my legs or wage nylon-run warfare. <i>Très</i> awesome!
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<br /></div><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-82076632966765511922011-05-26T19:19:00.001-06:002011-05-26T19:19:00.175-06:00the fool on the hill<div style="text-align: left;">What she said: "If you could climb that rock, it would make a cool picture."</div><div><br /></div><div>What I heard: "I bet you can't climb that rock!"</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZI52Tq_DYsnY18jaGlYCMHzJSwMGepRLadiBfhGnHayF77xByJ_85_uDElE8-sBQC4nDw2vv2hcTDLrCFAd0ptRd9dkr_nP_0FUY32Q-VYWQ4oCFN4O02chyns5MiZ7Y_yS6H3JMNvfU/s400/035.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608265691371543186" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 302px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div>Stubborn fool.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-52433131656353403122011-05-24T19:10:00.001-06:002011-05-24T20:29:51.360-06:00a love letter to montana<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNPJpNwl-DdZBxGjiIt9tel2nRdAPXty9Tk8jHhtoIcP5pXYCs8NIQpr6SFSv6RIkt6K3_nurhQE5pZ70UeGbPsblJmd8nIX_QOGYl0XsPCxnnhMsZ7AeHBNvn-kCdqmYPujC08qDzsPo/s1600/SAM_0961.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><br />I spent most of yesterday driving through Montana. I drove and drove, through miles and miles of grand, mind-numbing gorgeousness: rumpled hills and jagged cliffs and trees bravely grasping at the sky. I could imagine Lewis and/or Clark, clutching at one another's hands, writing breathlessly to Gallatin to inform him of the enormity and perfection of his unbelievable purchase. I can imagine trapper and explorers awestruck with vista after vista. <div><br /></div><div>For a moment, in the car, I felt I was the first person to ever lay eyes on such a scene--and then I realized I <i>was</i>. The sunlight had never streamed just so upon that hill before. The grass had never grown so just precisely there. Every moment was a new creation, and this newness has been going on forever, long before we came along to care. How many storms and sunsets and quiet moments of beauty have been <i>unseen</i>? Nearly all.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Words fail in the face of such a place. But there is something about this place that I have to try to describe. There is something about its vastness, its grandness, its wholeness. Its hugeness and yet its infinitismal detail, its oldness and its newness. Its ruggedness and its fragility. There is something about this place that is so good for the soul, it has to be shared.<div><div><br /></div><div>As people age, their skin becomes so interesting. Colors change, wrinkles and furrows form. Every pore is different and tells a story of a lifetime. The variation, the depth, the weathering that comes from a century of existence is so beautiful and fascinating. Well, the hills, the rocks, the mountains and sands... they all have it too. Only they've had millions of years for nature to cross-hatch them, to shade them, to sharpen them into infinite detail. And instead of a square inch, earth has miles and miles and miles to work upon. </div><div><br /></div><div>A painter, an artist, could spend his/her entire life mixing paint to match the variation of color in a single blade of grass. Everything we do in life and in art is a gross simplification of the infinite, incomprehensible detail all around us. But nature takes no shortcuts. In the massivest of vistas, every single speck, every stone, every leaf and grain of sand is formed uniquely and intricately. Not only does the largeness of a scene overwhelm, but the smallness. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is this combination of opposites: of ageless and fleeting and hard and soft and strength and vulnerability that is so affecting and so powerful. We blink out our little lives in its furrows while its wholeness continues unaffected, giant by all measures. Yet that is the true nature of things, and getting back to it does ourselves good, for we are eternally encircled by this beauty.</div><div><br /></div><div>My friend once told me of a giant mirror of heaven, broken into a thousand pieces and scattered into what is the earth. I like this very much, but would change it a little, into a wave that came crashing down upon the earth. When the waters of life are still, or sometimes in a tiny drop, you can see heaven's reflection.</div><div><br /></div><div>Such a place is good for the soul because it reminds us what coolness is, what texture is, what light is. It reminds us what feeling is, what wholeness is, what beauty is. It reminds us what eternity is. It reminds us what life is. It reminds us what is true. </div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDWNe8HwIDkfgwm9hPET9NyroAwLwYNG2oXQmWiOP3Nw3-RCKNS1caM-_QpjdfVqiL75Xzt2ZPyJ_U6ex-EMa3ITZpbLGBpwzbkG1ZYRl5fjJrQucUwgw39daIND5UhFPw28wDaV7KP_c/s200/SAM_1033.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610473027225548482" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNPJpNwl-DdZBxGjiIt9tel2nRdAPXty9Tk8jHhtoIcP5pXYCs8NIQpr6SFSv6RIkt6K3_nurhQE5pZ70UeGbPsblJmd8nIX_QOGYl0XsPCxnnhMsZ7AeHBNvn-kCdqmYPujC08qDzsPo/s200/SAM_0961.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610473718586544322" style="text-align: left;float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px; " /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQt7VP2hi7g3MIAd8iByuP5DaSnZoj7ITVNLxiDGZRZwYVEtiiPUBK6GCtW1NY3puJDWQdKMg-7Em1EEI8jjUS5HFGRLTyQeGTSKqFoFvN6G8S2GTjzAn9Rv0Kp55Iy-lN5ahMLOBEz28/s200/SAM_1250.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610473271399106290" style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px; " /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And so, I love Montana.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-2368011300797055942011-05-22T19:00:00.003-06:002011-05-22T19:00:02.828-06:00the wildlife guide: pensive edition<div>I saw some bighorn sheep today.</div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVGPsLsmWbCG_-5lEuM66Ebc4kWZ-rrmydFpl8-DT0cAuK1pFoFwCcNmLtkGOwxQmBkhh7q_05pxx8aLS_p_gFm_Zebu3ddW0qT5J4_TRMn6x22rgTLTavLSy-_30ZmryjywETZePtJE/s1600/SAM_0751.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVGPsLsmWbCG_-5lEuM66Ebc4kWZ-rrmydFpl8-DT0cAuK1pFoFwCcNmLtkGOwxQmBkhh7q_05pxx8aLS_p_gFm_Zebu3ddW0qT5J4_TRMn6x22rgTLTavLSy-_30ZmryjywETZePtJE/s400/SAM_0751.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601857654184487458" /></a><br /><br /><div>I like how even with horns nearing thirty pounds, they hold their heads up high.</div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-71326050800131690422011-05-18T19:00:00.004-06:002011-05-18T21:18:55.345-06:00snow. and snow.<div style="text-align: left;">Have you ever wondered what Yellowstone looks like in April? It looks like this.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhlhcvGHyzJDjd6jv1rE_uEurlzkcP1AfNKQ3qSq_8LFfYnXL0zWSHOrp9eBIszMQC4kghKoJ2UNZmAQjJMGSLnZJLqKFojiVbqOK_t2qNFC9nKFXewLc2bozU2sEfSwl7yKlT7tuWEIs/s1600/SAM_0623.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhlhcvGHyzJDjd6jv1rE_uEurlzkcP1AfNKQ3qSq_8LFfYnXL0zWSHOrp9eBIszMQC4kghKoJ2UNZmAQjJMGSLnZJLqKFojiVbqOK_t2qNFC9nKFXewLc2bozU2sEfSwl7yKlT7tuWEIs/s400/SAM_0623.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5602694883741205378" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Only more so.</div><div><br /></div><div>And also this:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCSfxgf5HJcS0o87Hwx1XWa_SsTDbH2fw5R2XrynV5wnL2DSFnWAD53-uoprnR_KZH9nAlXRlK8nCFMqILr6nFYY6s6zV2JyZ0lzttB3dP-MLi1ZoiVg4itU4NSwxEwbFEwtgD9PH1hLU/s1600/SAM_0645.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCSfxgf5HJcS0o87Hwx1XWa_SsTDbH2fw5R2XrynV5wnL2DSFnWAD53-uoprnR_KZH9nAlXRlK8nCFMqILr6nFYY6s6zV2JyZ0lzttB3dP-MLi1ZoiVg4itU4NSwxEwbFEwtgD9PH1hLU/s400/SAM_0645.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5602699898529075122" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>That's Lake Yellowstone. I feel a fool complaining about Utah-Siberia all those years when the East Entrance has a May avalanche and collapses the Lake visitor center. Layers cannot protect you from a snow-nami! But.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhluVMfIIQuSGCUtrtGUit_KdnvwTd9HCAXLmV-N_i0U_UmxDHikjpnTrA2rXKcRy1KXXpk1i0MGlzLnn8NRpPLnjDeR3MMc01suDMdeYC6-kQUxW-kU-yZYMFAy_KotiIP4uP8RaDxzvs/s400/SAM_0636.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608261065734521378" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 400px; " /></span></div><div>Isn't it lovely?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-22351622136030760352011-05-17T18:45:00.000-06:002011-05-17T18:47:51.413-06:00seven firsts<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMl9x-wJAvcDikQPppL_eK-wEFaar-SLXcwbXR2B58Sm54mfIscTX25K8fKBAnaBUjj1ie7dLA7nnU07Sb4j72m_YKGUfmgP-C0RMbrNuByEeP6XQkHuqGIrsjz8MgnXU5Sv-i5A-eLw/s1600/SAM_1053.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMl9x-wJAvcDikQPppL_eK-wEFaar-SLXcwbXR2B58Sm54mfIscTX25K8fKBAnaBUjj1ie7dLA7nnU07Sb4j72m_YKGUfmgP-C0RMbrNuByEeP6XQkHuqGIrsjz8MgnXU5Sv-i5A-eLw/s200/SAM_1053.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607850825353015746" /></a><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiKy3d7ojZ7Ou6dX4yyWk_UBAv5FuGvXloaPGs8i8QneduG174qkQeh5kI8Rx8oRlkNiwcaUUrYitfsTzuSJpTy6CdnEDOCb3VH2gnIu1f3zjTx3MVjHuZi1DTtVcOnBdANvLq2mfsDis/s1600/SAM_0881.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiKy3d7ojZ7Ou6dX4yyWk_UBAv5FuGvXloaPGs8i8QneduG174qkQeh5kI8Rx8oRlkNiwcaUUrYitfsTzuSJpTy6CdnEDOCb3VH2gnIu1f3zjTx3MVjHuZi1DTtVcOnBdANvLq2mfsDis/s200/SAM_0881.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607848728697980674" /></a><b><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrpIW9_ZkF0-kT_-XInNlEZXZFTOUjdJ85VP3RxXqMem6oduRqi6L2l_qWhHK0B7TE6aGyTzO8-_apkjZh3WErRX7gARqltrMD-0wMs2ntTL6mGh6fx915eRGdH5AfrtmjADX8se7lTNY/s200/SAM_1021.JPG" style="text-align: center;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 200px; " border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607850375198241010" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">1. A bear. Two, even. Both black, but one was a cinnamon black. Meaning it was a brown bear, but still a black bear. (The other was a black black bear, and very striking.)</span></b><div><br /></div><div>2. A clean-shaven ranger. They are shedding their winter face-coats. A true sign of spring!</div><div><br /></div><div>3. Solo dye job.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. Beaver Ponds Trail. No beavers, no Rory or Amy, but trail aplenty.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. Bison sirloin. Delicious. I feel horrible about it.</div><div><br /></div><div>6. A moonrise half-submerged in a hot-spring/river-culvert. 'Twas lovely.</div><div><br /></div><div>7. A Clark bar. The Gardiner Sinclair is something of a candy bar preserve, with its U-NOs and Twin Bings and Neccos. Sweetmeats from another age.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, I'm trying something new and posting a little anecdote e'ery day. I hope I won't clutter your dash.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-6170255177587182952011-05-13T20:45:00.017-06:002011-05-13T22:15:55.252-06:00to his credit, he did use the phrase "somnolent vagaries"<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span>Mammoth is all in a flurry for opening on</span> Friday. Mattresses crowd the hallway and paint chips flutter from the ceiling. Fire alarms went off all day yesterday, and a man's been shoveling buffalo chips and elk scat off the lawns. I'm dreading the onslaught of tourists.<br /></span><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span" >But. As promised, here is the story of Truman Everts. Get ready. It's a crazy.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/TrumanCEverts.JPG/353px-TrumanCEverts.JPG" name="graphics4" align="RIGHT" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="353" height="599" border="0" /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span></span><span></span> </span></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Truman Everts <s> Delaware III </s> has the notoriety of being lost (and alive) in Yellowstone National Park the longest. He was expediting with the Washburne-Langford-Doane expedition in 1870, and, being near-sighted, he wandered off with his pack-horse to be lost. His 37 days in the wilderness went something like this:</span></div> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; widows: 2; orphans: 2"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Day 1: Lost.</span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 2: Pack-horse spooks and runs off. (See inset.) He is left with an opera glass and the contents of his pockets.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span class="Apple-style-span" ><span><span><span>Day 3: Having eaten seriously nothing, he feasts upon some "palatable and nutritious" thistle-</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span">roots. (This thistle was later to be named after him.) "Glorious counterpoise to the wretchedness of the preceding half-hour!"</span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 3 1/2: He scrambles up a tree in order to avoid a screeching mountain lion. After a tussle, cougar avoided.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 4-5: Snowstorm. He eats a raw bird. Feet frostbitten.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 6-13: Hunkers down on some hots springs to stay warm, cooking thistles in a hot-pot. After three days, his hip is badly scalded. After seven days, he decides to make a fire with his opera-glass.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"><span class="Apple-style-span" >*Meanwhile, Washburne and/or Langford and/or Doane has realized Everts is missing. They search for him for about twelve days, then offer a $600 reward for their friend's rescue. This will be important later.*</span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXThkJ1LlRDlUmzP3tba37UGyUzEUD8jxfzSGqhrqAtlzepbhteRxwcePfqCcgsxCFcfGP00Cz4e8iFcy_QeS9k6-E7LjaXrhSS04M-KRK27bwLjM218nCaNyj3N7uaamDQArmJlTuFVQ/s320/dramatic.jpg" name="graphics3" align="LEFT" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="288" height="320" border="0" /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span></span><span></span> </span></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Day 14: Leaves the hot springs. Hallucinations set in.</span></div> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Day 15: Burns hand badly.</span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 16: Loses a shoe. Despairs. Finds it.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 17: Inadvertently sets the forest on fire. Loses knife, fishing line/hook, and hair to the flame.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 18ish? A vision of a friend appears to him and gives him directions.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 20... something...: He loses all sense of time, and therefore so does this account.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day __: He eats some minnows, and throws them up.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span class="Apple-style-span" ><span><span><span>Day __: He spies an abandoned tree stump/former bear den and decides to sleep in it. As a precautionary measure, he lights three fires around the stump to </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span">prevent the bear's return. Unfortunately, as he puts, it,"I rose the next morning to find that during the night, the fires had communicated with the forest." Forest fire the second.</span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >*Meanwhile, $600 is quite a bit of money in 1870, and two mountaineers decide to have a go. They head to the spot where he was last seen and start the search from there.*</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day __: Everts climbs down a treacherous cliff.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day __: The opera glass! She is lost! Everts retraces five miles to find her.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day __: Several storms. Like snow, guys. Serious cold. All kinds of wandering 'round in misery.</span></span></span></p><p align="LEFT" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2; "><span><span><span ><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrg2KjobLw9JfujP96aNywGn8nUWLtLXhEttb8oa2JKQCnIqsrj9IXl5EobBia7_pxuZH4xp6n59V6OflcHkmsolA2nq5qK86BoeJoFc_6VEeeDPD2MT8Vi6op6ReOWpvNje4FredUAI/s1600/Fullscreen+capture+5122011+105913+PM.bmp.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrg2KjobLw9JfujP96aNywGn8nUWLtLXhEttb8oa2JKQCnIqsrj9IXl5EobBia7_pxuZH4xp6n59V6OflcHkmsolA2nq5qK86BoeJoFc_6VEeeDPD2MT8Vi6op6ReOWpvNje4FredUAI/s400/Fullscreen+capture+5122011+105913+PM.bmp.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606419498801578930" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px; " /></a></span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Day 37: The man is barefoot, frostbitten to the bone, emaciated, and has claws for hands. Yet when two rescuers ask him if he is Mr. Everts, he still has the cheek to say, “All that is left of him.”</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span class="Apple-style-span" ><span><span><span>The rescuers are Baronet and Prichette. One hikes 75 miles for help. The other nurses him back to help. Turns out, ye life-sustaining thistles are wreaking havoc on the digestives. Until </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span">a mountain man has the now fifty-pound Everts drink A PINT OF BEAR OIL.</span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >(Stop. Take a moment. Imagine bear oil. Imagine a pint of it. Imagine drinking a pint of bear oil. All at once. Have you considered it thoroughly? Have you? Okay, we can resume the story.)</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Perhaps as a direct consequence of drinking sixteen fluid ounces of raw fat, Everts gains thirty pounds and sets off to join his abandoners in Helena. They name a mountain after him and are presumably very happy to see him again.</span></span></span></p><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span><span><span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span">HOWEVER. No one will give the money to Baronet and Prichette. No one ever does. The expeditioners won't pay up and Everts flat-out refuses. (Had I a time machine, I would show up in 1870 Montana with $600 for EACH of them and possibly be lynched for wearing pants.) The mountaineers shrug off this heinous display of ingratitude eventually. Hard times are hard times. Possibly Everts was broke. BUT. Years latair, Baronet visits Everts to see how his rescuee is doing and is received so coldly that Baronet said he “wished he had left the son-of-a-gun to roam.” Whoa. Make of that what you will.</span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"><span><span><span ><br /></span></span></span></p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBcYMYnj5jwj3EvG3R53LOjZ-ztnfwVSGKxhjAGwCixZ2L1ND0r13MsKgghAWwPDb2ObHSKk1V_czsUZBXz1bcE3DkAJj5NN5lCj6_Lwfv5XL7DBJJHiqpKlu70yH8sD0MHtKk_CzNh0/s320/SAM_0953.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606409478047955106" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span><span><span>Anyways. After recuperating as best as one </span></span></span>can from such an experience, Everts himself went on to marry a fourteen-year-old girl at age sixty-five, father Truman Everts Jr. at age seventy-five, and die peacefully at age eighty-five, leaving behind two bereft rescuers and a thirty-something widow with a ten-year-old. And that is the story of Truman Everts. (And also how this mountain got its name .)</span><div><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"><span class="Apple-style-span" >This place is a magnet for madness. Chock-full of crazy people and stories and things. I kind of love it. Maybe next time we'll talk Superintendent Norris or tackle Teddy Roosevelt.</span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"> <span><span><span >Much love!</span></span></span></p><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; widows: 2; orphans: 2"><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-53765858942340932722011-05-05T20:14:00.018-06:002011-05-06T21:21:22.092-06:00wildlife guide: the bisonry<div><br /></div>BISON. Bison, collectively, are my Yellowstone crush...<br /><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBofeKB2aVXm6b2c8bUIIBuow9HtRj98kXgUqbhOe0mIb4tHXtFv8XjqSohjV5oG_SQoqC0Zt8TqHyg6fFKlHtyDsdvlEgQzFEjmcRB8MXfHPoz0xv0QI1SssJ5CmWVPGZtooWaImS3Rs/s1600/SAM_0584.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBofeKB2aVXm6b2c8bUIIBuow9HtRj98kXgUqbhOe0mIb4tHXtFv8XjqSohjV5oG_SQoqC0Zt8TqHyg6fFKlHtyDsdvlEgQzFEjmcRB8MXfHPoz0xv0QI1SssJ5CmWVPGZtooWaImS3Rs/s400/SAM_0584.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603466437862428466" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>...bordering on monomaniac obsession. Every time I see one my heart about jumps out of my chest. You would think after seeing them a million times a day for a week my swoonery would cease some, but it hasn't. Nor has my excitement about living near them lessened, even after getting trapped in the Mammoth Hotel by them* or bushwhacking an uphill path seventy-five-foot-safe. Nay. I am straight-up crazy about the bison.</div><div><br /></div><div>A bison is not a water buffalo. Nor is it a cow. 'Tis a gloriously hooved, horned, sloping-shouldered mini-mountain of snuffly herbivore wildness. They amble over miles with their friends and kin. Their foraging is endless and unceasing and epic. They Are Yellowstone. They Are the American West.</div><div><br /></div><div>They are also HUGE. And huge. Like, 1500 pounds worth of huge. I think if they hadn't been most unfortunately largely killed, we would all have to live in forts so as not to be trampled by their thousands. This time of year their ribs stick out and they're having BABIES. YES, BABIES. BABY BISON.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU0UpWRE1B5Wlw-AOTWsGuWh0d_CfFAqR7PJi9ilGKFHxcvt56dLCYwR13FzPQEX76e9uaWmOVNVFtatifiONZ-5UIKs4JYV56oIUt2ieQDCudFhvVU7K8099sKwwrwBdCoMW_5dGEgv4/s1600/SAM_0794.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU0UpWRE1B5Wlw-AOTWsGuWh0d_CfFAqR7PJi9ilGKFHxcvt56dLCYwR13FzPQEX76e9uaWmOVNVFtatifiONZ-5UIKs4JYV56oIUt2ieQDCudFhvVU7K8099sKwwrwBdCoMW_5dGEgv4/s400/SAM_0794.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603466455187250578" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 255px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I TOOK THIS PHOTO. Also this one:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjqxyck9erTR9H39WC0VlTUSdOO1SQw6SqdH51SO3VFSkRQ8BkfM4JSUdnX_HLbGrYYuMqZ_Dbo-wO6Ypqah_1_s0ZNWmmgMVxkCuFFEtEK9j8gpZYm56VLQR2ZRs2HmJxZCMySxJTaTk/s1600/SAM_0621.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjqxyck9erTR9H39WC0VlTUSdOO1SQw6SqdH51SO3VFSkRQ8BkfM4JSUdnX_HLbGrYYuMqZ_Dbo-wO6Ypqah_1_s0ZNWmmgMVxkCuFFEtEK9j8gpZYm56VLQR2ZRs2HmJxZCMySxJTaTk/s400/SAM_0621.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603466446198467122" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 324px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Bison like to wander upon the road. Perhaps it gives their hooves a break. By and by they realize there is <i>still </i>nothing to eat on the asphalt, so then they wander off again. In the meantime, traffic jams and panic and photographic frenzies abound. Whenever I get on a bus, I secretly pray I will encounter some bison on the road very closely and therefore break the 25-yard-distant rule, but also not get tossed.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBh6aC4dSjdJPtpvrITwvtGoozMkj7mYsCQyOvf6LNHJjfCajYPRStMqvVFwizMROKgNagKJPvHtFOJW9r5-ab9Uv23j-Dw-DPRb1mKpmGhq9jA_LP7c7QrKo8zj1Ro5iJqqdyk3PAWAM/s1600/SAM_0810.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBh6aC4dSjdJPtpvrITwvtGoozMkj7mYsCQyOvf6LNHJjfCajYPRStMqvVFwizMROKgNagKJPvHtFOJW9r5-ab9Uv23j-Dw-DPRb1mKpmGhq9jA_LP7c7QrKo8zj1Ro5iJqqdyk3PAWAM/s400/SAM_0810.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603468224817478994" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 276px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>A tossing, depicted.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, everyone outside of the Park hates bison and considers them the devil's own ungulates. Bison are democratically regarded as a menace. State senators call them "a creeping cancer," "woolly tanks" "in need of management." Montanans are dying to shoot them. Tourists are gored by them annually. In the West, bison are almost as controversial as wolves. And when you are stopped in your little tin car waiting for the biggest, blackest, massivest bison in Yellowstone to step off the road so you can drive on but instead he is ambling right for you, your liver can't help but produce liquid nitrogen.</div><div><br /></div><div>But guess what? When you live in a place with snowdrifts thirty feet deep, and grizzly bears and black bears and wolves and mountain lions all lust after your flesh and the blood of your offspring, and the times and the foliage are changing fast, and you are poached on an unrelenting basis and scopeless scale, you have to be tough. And so? They are. And that is why I love the bison.**</div><div><br /></div><div>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div><br /></div><div>*Because when you are sketching something and suddenly you realize a herd is closing in around you to snuffle the lawn and the 25-yard rule is consequently violated and you accidentally make a noise and that big one there looks at you alarmed, you have to go and hide out in the Mammoth Hotel. Even if it's closed for the season. Until you realize twenty minutes later there is a back door that has been unencumbered with bison all this time and you can go home safely.</div><div><br /></div><div>**And also because I saw one scratching itself on a post in a parking lot today and a guy driving by stuck his head out the window and said, "I thought that spot was handicapped only! Does he look handicapped to you?" (He didn't - the bison was fully intact, just itchy.) People in Wyoming have a good sense of humor, now that spring is here.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-9397214735192762972011-05-04T17:23:00.001-06:002011-05-05T22:48:10.024-06:00the kate update(I hope this will answer some questions I've gotten of late regarding my situation.)<br /><div><br /></div><div>By day, I answer phones in an office in a haunted hotel, navigating a 1980 program in a Pong color scheme to reserve Roughrider Cabins and photography tours. Sometimes I shell peanuts.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnW3pfuh5lgjYCMeBDtgJ_34zpSo-YDCe06G0QKITms75Xw9XMc-bMQpbtlg3cWVgRym1-yOxIprXhlOj-uKnM67boATua3aYuNuR2L8qII1oSGKEcFxhTnFNjq6fZbm7FroyiuP5vR0I/s1600/SAM_0817.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnW3pfuh5lgjYCMeBDtgJ_34zpSo-YDCe06G0QKITms75Xw9XMc-bMQpbtlg3cWVgRym1-yOxIprXhlOj-uKnM67boATua3aYuNuR2L8qII1oSGKEcFxhTnFNjq6fZbm7FroyiuP5vR0I/s400/SAM_0817.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603458411897769186" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 141px; " /></a></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">(Said hotel. Plus some landscape and thermal features.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I live in a dun-colored dorm upon a dun-colored hill. I have a roommate - an avid knitter with a nose stud who lets me wear her yarny hats. Bison and elk often come to visit us.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBTrMXrBdFsksJTdiBDpiYKb_2GLK-ZMrHZrWCOZhACnklQEQV3NUebomrjj8iVhrIt1XCluNuHi9N5ZbS8cu4KdHScz0AIGJYiGkqdYDoE0bkf6H1Zzqk4HIqC6EVx11zTL59Rd-kAM/s1600/SAM_0870.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBTrMXrBdFsksJTdiBDpiYKb_2GLK-ZMrHZrWCOZhACnklQEQV3NUebomrjj8iVhrIt1XCluNuHi9N5ZbS8cu4KdHScz0AIGJYiGkqdYDoE0bkf6H1Zzqk4HIqC6EVx11zTL59Rd-kAM/s400/SAM_0870.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603458416419205266" style="cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 400px; " /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(My dining room adjoins the bisonry's, but they're just here for the herbage.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Unlike my hoofed neighbors, I do not eat grass. I take my meals in a staff cafeteria, discussing Minnesotan politics or the evolution of the blunderbuss with my seatmates. The fare is fair, and there is perpetual granola.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blindkat.hegewisch.net/pirates/blunderbuss.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="http://blindkat.hegewisch.net/pirates/blunderbuss.gif" border="0" alt="" style="cursor: pointer; width: 440px; height: 199px; " /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(A blunderbuss. Its predecessor was the hand cannon, and it was succeeded by the flintlock.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The nearest movie theater and Wal-Mart sort of store are eighty miles away. There are exactly two receivable radio stations. But about 100 yards from my house is a place to buy sardines, Stetsons, and bear spray. And one of said stations is National Public Radio. So, I am set for the summer. </div><div><br /></div><div>Please give me your mailing address so I can send you a postcard! I love you!</div></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-31493145077153728702011-05-01T14:45:00.003-06:002011-05-01T15:34:16.417-06:00CHECK IT<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHOKaDyhRK8nziHcrQ-NguqMsLmtAh1Rc0GqgcMWNU1oNOl0yW3HBqVKZQChCUQmlUM11pDo1UIgjiZ_ov9YgeRXkUPAim3Avgyhpa7hYMlUgIPsQRYxX_1iHwfrCc4TAYHDK1JLJ20U/s1600/SAM_0761.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 359px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHOKaDyhRK8nziHcrQ-NguqMsLmtAh1Rc0GqgcMWNU1oNOl0yW3HBqVKZQChCUQmlUM11pDo1UIgjiZ_ov9YgeRXkUPAim3Avgyhpa7hYMlUgIPsQRYxX_1iHwfrCc4TAYHDK1JLJ20U/s400/SAM_0761.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601854664643547746" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-72106504493924784012011-04-28T18:04:00.010-06:002011-04-28T20:01:16.196-06:00yellowstone: a brief overview slash geohistorical explanation<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMRQtHZUnhfEcw4Nzjjjv124fn-qXcJ_5iWSMuFB_Qvfg7hZDm4xmxlzZpKh08GoD7bK_TR-_Shhf5TZQMNu_MlNUxjxMIKX5Vw1JeJqbEEN1B9DiqjwnjXBmTRFa-ZOXKHGrowpavfY/s1600/SAM_0652.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><br /><a href="http://www.wariscrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/yellowstone-volcano.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 200px;" src="http://www.wariscrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/yellowstone-volcano.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Yellowstone is basically a giant volcano. A supervolcano, even. There's still ash in Ohio from when it exploded last time, and the next eruption is overdue. I've told my family, if this thing blows, cut your losses and run, because I am all kinds of dead.</span></span><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">Geologically speaking, however, this makes the place very interesting. It's over the top of three massive calderas (which sounds like the name of a telenovela star, but isn't. It's a concave receded volcano-hole.). All the lava and gas and pressure comes steaming up through the snow to make cool things like geysers and hotpots and vents, and people and ungulates keep falling through them and being boiled to death. New cracks still open up today, even. Like, a hotpot opened up in the middle of a parking lot recently, and the Park Service just kind of gave up and put a fence around it.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Anyways. Historically speaking, the whole thing is kind of hilarious. For years there were all kinds of crazy stories about that Yellowstone River area. Jim Bridger, especially, would talk about "man-eating mud" and everyone would roll their eyes and say, "Yeah Bridge... and then it bit a great white shark in half" but then an expedition or something finally came out and stood at Old Faithful. They were so excited when it erupted that they "threw their hats in the air!" and promptly went back to Congress, who was <i>super </i>stoked to the point of declaring the area America's first national park. (This was in 1872. Wyoming wasn't even a state yet.*)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNMRQtHZUnhfEcw4Nzjjjv124fn-qXcJ_5iWSMuFB_Qvfg7hZDm4xmxlzZpKh08GoD7bK_TR-_Shhf5TZQMNu_MlNUxjxMIKX5Vw1JeJqbEEN1B9DiqjwnjXBmTRFa-ZOXKHGrowpavfY/s400/SAM_0652.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5600817491285125458" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 310px; " /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">However, since the Park Service hadn't been invented yet, the U.S. Cavalry had to come in and protect the place from poachers and </span><span class="Apple-style-span">squatters and stagecoach bandits and the usual 19th-century kind of vagabonds. The king's horses and men were stationed in what is now known as Mammoth Hot Springs. (Literally a couple hundred yards from where I live now.<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px; ">**</span></span>) </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Eventually, though, they got rangers to do their job, and the stagecoaches turned to automobiles and snowcoaches, and then there was electricity and running water, and millions upon millions of tourists came. (And there is still zero cell phone coverage or WiFi, but to be honest, I kind of like it that way.) And s</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">o much history happens here that they actually have an official Yellowstone Historian, whose job I covet. </span><span class="Apple-style-span">And t</span><span class="Apple-style-span">he whole park covers like a third of Wyoming, with a teense of Montana and Idaho,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "> and except for the fact that it's haunted</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">†</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">, I like it here very much.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">Next time I will tell you about all the surprising ways to snuff it in Yellowstone and about my unhealthy obsession with bison. Also the story of Truman Everett. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, SimSun, 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; font-size: 15px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, SimSun, 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; font-size: 15px; ">我</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, SimSun, 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, 宋体; font-size: 16px; ">想</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, simsun; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span">你们!</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Kate </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">*By the way, <i>who </i>was president in 1872? That's right. It was Grant. <i>Not </i>Roosevelt. Ahem.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px; font-size: small; ">**</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; ">I finally figured out what state I live in. It's Wyoming. I'm a little disappointed, because I, like Captain Borodin, really wanted to live in Montana. But I'm very very close. I go to church and buy detergent in Gardiner, even.</span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">†</span>Yes, haunted! There is a whole book called <i>Ghosts of Yellowstone</i>. I'm kind of terrified to read it because my work is in the old Mammoth Hotel and there are three cemeteries within walking distance of my house.</span></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-72828421554053539882011-04-16T15:15:00.010-06:002011-11-19T15:26:25.658-07:00love, 208<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>It's nice to have someone help spray your hair pink or explain the pound sterling. One's email inbox is much easier to open when there's a zombie apocalypse e-card inside.<div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, I won the roommate lottery.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeO2zWYx1FYWDVFv8NGVh80Cs6X6OnvDktJtiELPmWkdKLOtDzfv-bJ7GdRf_EtsMNnQOQjGAQYd4ttoaJBpSsjAN8J-J52E4ZWQP3le4ncP3kosajipdb74u7Gz-8cN_RSUwBEsM079A/s1600/SAM_0541.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeO2zWYx1FYWDVFv8NGVh80Cs6X6OnvDktJtiELPmWkdKLOtDzfv-bJ7GdRf_EtsMNnQOQjGAQYd4ttoaJBpSsjAN8J-J52E4ZWQP3le4ncP3kosajipdb74u7Gz-8cN_RSUwBEsM079A/s400/SAM_0541.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597790971093434322" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Life is better with this varied crew, this assembly of dear characters, and the peace in my heart that comes from being among friends. I love these girls. And as they scatter, as twenty-somethings will, I wish them all the utmost well.</div></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6461273246133743930.post-86888534144289425032011-04-15T12:48:00.003-06:002011-04-15T19:10:24.812-06:00♥My father has a special place in his heart for some real good pastry. To this day, he and Lucie lament the demise of the old ZCMI bakery. On Sunday-afternoon visits, the conversation turns to cream and custard as they fondly reminisce napoleons gone by, eulogizing choux secrets lost.<br /><br />It was another blow when Marie Callender ceased to make her famous Boston Cream Pie. A layered confection, this "pie" is essentially stacks of pudding and cake encircled by piecrust, iced in chocolate and lavished with cream. It was my father's very favorite. Driving past exit 316, Dad shakes his head sadly. "I'd say let's stop and pick up dessert, but since they don't have Boston Cream any more..." He trails off. "It's just not worth it."<br /><br />It would seem that entropy takes its toll upon the world, and that the art of the pastry deteriorates further and further. However, life changed for the better when a pastry shop opened up downtown. The owner is an implant from the Old World, a Poland-trained baker who excels at desserts, assembling gorgeous little intricacies of cream and sugar that are enjoyed by snowbirds and locals alike.<br /><br />The prospect of swan-shaped cream puffs and chocolate cannoli cheered my father immensely. Dad took to chatting with "our friend, the Polish baker," occasionally picking up eclairs to take to Lucie. One day he came home with a box and a grin. "Look."<br />A circle of rich brown, framed with thick cream and piecrust. He carefully removed a piece, revealing layers of cake and vanilla pudding.<br />"Boston Cream Pie. I bought the whole thing."<br /><br />In a world of change, where quality and taste are so often met with disappointment, sometimes there are tender mercies: coincidences and moments that make life that much sweeter. I guess God speaks to us in ways we can understand. So much the better if they involve dessert.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4