Re: Idle Chatter

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eocmcdoc wrote:Had a strange happening. Went to get on the site with the bookmark I have been using since day 1.
the little info bar at the bottom said connecting to vivco ( I think) & some other site, then it said it was transferring back & forth to tribe forum. Maybe something. Maybe it is my stupid laptop.
Off the top of my head, it sounds like you may have stepped someplace that hijacked your browser. I had that happen to me last year when I followed a touted link for a live broadcast of a sporting event that was just a hoax to put their crap on my computer. I had to scrub and clean and reset the browser a couple of times each to get rid of it.

Re: Idle Chatter

1444
Returned today from another successful trip to Glacier National Park. I guess it is that time of the year to encourage anybody who has never visited to plan a trip there in the near future. You won't regret it.

Anyway, this was an especially cool trip for me cause I have been to the park well over a dozen times and have always hit hot spots looking for a moose. I always struck out.

Out of all my trips to the park only once have I not seen a grizzly bear. I usually see 2 or 3. This trip I saw 2. But never caught bull winkle. He has always eluded me.

Friday I took a hike to a lake where 2 or 3 moose had been hanging out every day this week, only to find nothing but a couple mountain goats way up on a ridge.

Saturday we took a hike to a place in the Two Medicine valley called Twin Falls. Didn't go there looking for moose, just to see a pretty waterfall. Imagine my surprise when on the hike back I had a moose standing, quite literally, right beside me!

I have been wanting to see a moose but they are pretty dangerous. They attack more people each year than grizzlies and wolves combined. They charge more people than bears and buffalo combined. So while I am psyched to have finally seen the elusive bastard, I must admit it could have been just a tad further away!

Also, I have been told that they will look right at you before charging, and generally take a few steps toward you before charging. You will see in one of my pics he was looking directly at me. And after snapping the pic he took a couple steps towards us. I slouched cowardly and slowly started walking away and he just continued eating his dinner. Thankfully. Then my dumb ass decided to snap another pic before leaving him alone for good. There is a dumb ass in every crowd, yesterday I was him.

So imagine how I felt after reading about the California man who was killed by a bear in Danali Park over the weekend. Rangers found that he had been photographing the bear for around 8 minutes before it charged him. 1 minute too long. I snapped 4 shots in probably 30 seconds and I thought that was pushing it. Maybe I don't feel so dumb after all.

Anyway, wanted to share a few of the sights from this weekends Glacier visit, complete with a long overdue moose sighting.
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Re: Idle Chatter

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Neat. Looks like he's enjoying himself. I know that area he is in very well. Right before you drive through that arch into Yellowstone there is a town called, Gardiner. Most of the time when I have driven through there I have seen elk everywhere. It is nothing to see big elk just roaming around the town and through peoples yards. Really cool. He must have missed out on that or he would have posted it. They make that deer he pictured look like a baby.

Pretty soon he will be posting some pictures of bison too. They are all over a part of Yellowstone.

We saw a herd on the way home yesterday. I think they were privately owned though, probably for their meat, cause they looked to be fenced in. More cool to see them in Wyoming at Yellowstone or Custer State Park where their are roaming freely in their own habitat.
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Re: Idle Chatter

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Glad you had another nice trip Hillbilly. I've still never made it there, though my wife did visit a couple of times as a kid. She keeps telling me we have to get back there, but we have to work through being parents of kids we can still help, and us being kids of parents that still need our help.

One day we'll make it.


Super shot on the moose, and I shared it with my wife. She loves meeses to pieces (old cartoon reference).

I've taken her to New England moose country, but we never found one. We have moose decor all over, and now we live in Florida. Go figure.

I saw a moose in Alaska with my first wife, but I could only engage my camera in time enough fashion to get a shot of his butt disappearing in the brush.

Those pics of the bison are making me hungry. I love bison burgers and have since my last visit through Wyoming a couple of years back.


I know a moose can be dangerous. I remember as a kid that my mother's doctor was out of commission for a few months because he had been charged while moose hunting in Canada and ended up with two badly broken legs and a loss to a moose.

Re: Idle Chatter

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This is old news, but I hadn't heard it until just now when the Orioles announcers on MASN mentioned it:

Last living U.S. World War I veteran dies



February 27, 2011|By Paul Courson, CNN


Frank Buckles, the last living U.S. World War I veteran, has died, a spokesman for his family said Sunday. He was 110.

Buckles "died peacefully in his home of natural causes" early Sunday morning, the family said in a statement sent to CNN late Sunday by spokesman David DeJonge.

Buckles marked his 110th birthday on February 1, but his family had earlier told CNN he had slowed considerably since last fall, according his daughter Susannah Buckles Flanagan, who lives at the family home near Charles Town, West Virginia.


Buckles, who served as a U.S. Army ambulance driver in Europe during what became known as the "Great War," rose to the rank of corporal before the war ended. He came to prominence in recent years, in part because of the work of DeJonge, a Michigan portrait photographer who had undertaken a project to document the last surviving veterans of that war.

As the years continued, all but Buckles had passed away, leaving him the "last man standing" among U.S. troops who were called "The Doughboys."

DeJonge found himself the spokesman and advocate for Buckles in his mission to see to it that his comrades were honored with a monument on the National Mall, alongside memorials for veterans of World War II and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

Buckles made history when he was asked to testify in Congress on the matter before a House committee on December 3, 2009.

"I have to," he told CNN when he came to Washington, as part of what he considered his responsibility to honor the memory of fellow-veterans.

Buckles, after World War I ended, took up a career as a ship's officer on merchant vessels. He was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II and held prisoner of war for more than three years before he was freed by U.S. troops.

Never saying much about his POW experience, Buckles instead wanted attention drawn to the plight of the D.C. War Memorial. During a visit to the run-down, neglected site a few years ago, he went past the nearby World War II memorial without stopping, even as younger veterans stopped and saluted the old soldier in his wheelchair as he went by.

Renovations to the structure began last fall, but Buckles, with his health already failing, could not make a trip to Washington to review the improvements. The National Park Service is overseeing efforts that include replacing a neglected walkway and dressing up a deteriorated dome and marble columns.

Re: Idle Chatter

1454
TFinFla:

Yeah, those moose can be very bashful. I can attest to that. I saw one from a distance in Grand Teton Park once, but took me many years to get a good look.

Those pics of the bison are making me hungry. I love bison burgers and have since my last visit through Wyoming a couple of years back.

I posted one of those pictures of the bison on my Facebook page with the caption, "mmmm ... steak" I love bison burgers and steak too.

We asked some locals while we were in glacier where some of the good local eats were and someone told us of a steak and BBQ place in Baab, which is a tiny town just outside the park near the "Many Glacier" area. She said their Bison Ribeye was to die for. We didn't get a chance to try it this trip but I'll definitely hit it next trip.

The Many Glacier Hotel has a stroganoff dish made with bison meat that is awesome, I know that. I liked it so much I've had it twice.