"Gee, this is a crazy town!"

The scene was Thanksgiving morning in the apartment, and it was a clear, frosty morning. I had started washing the mud-caked clothes from our mud-caked hike yesterday, the turkey had just gone in the oven, I'd poured myself the second cup of coffee, and we had just finished listening to Alice's Restaurant when I saw an old guy with a trucker cap on shuffling up the sidewalk to our door.

He knocked on the door and when I answered, he asked if I had a gallon of gas. Well, no, I didn't have a gas can and everyone's not here. "Gee, this is a crazy town!" He was totally bewildered. He was on his way to Belfield, was late, and almost completely out of gas. I told him it was only 15 miles to Belfield, and I asked if he had found the convenience station yet. The convenience station in town lets you pay with a credit card even if the store is closed, which it assuredly was. Trouble was, he only had cash.

We decided I'd go help him out, pay with my credit card, and he'd give me the cash. I told him I'd meet him over at the convenience station, since I still had my pajamas on (I still have a lot of road karma to make up). He gave me $5 and said it would be all right if I put $4 worth of gas in. I watched the spinning numbers on the old pump spin by until I stopped it right on $5. I wished him a happy Thanksgiving and hoped that nobody would be too upset that he was going to be late. I also helped out a couple ladies who were trying to figure out that confusing credit card machine at the pump, too, and helped them navigate back to the freeway. As the gentleman drove off, one of the ladies asked if he had paid me. I said, "I've been to Africa. I know to get the money up front."

Passing the Bucks

In between snow events that close the road (it gets pretty dangerous when you combine icy, winding roads, hills, and no guard rails), I have taken a couple trips around the park. I finally found the Northern shrike, which I had not seen in the park before and had wanted to see (lifetime checklist). I also found the Townsend's solitaire at the East Entrance. Although the solitaire is fairly shy, I got a really nice look at it. The prairie dogs were kind of upset I was out there in the mud walking through their town, and a golden eagle had to give up its surveillance after all the dogs went into their holes as I walked through.

The deer are in their rut right now, which is kind of fun to see. As I drove along the road, I found whitetails in the wooded areas where I'd expect to find them, but they're so shy they're nearly impossible to get pictures. I have seen some nice-looking mule deer bucks, though. I saw one particularly triumphant one, a trophy for any of the many hunters prowling around the area, sniffing around a doe who already had a fawn with her.

I probably could have gotten a closer picture of him if they hadn't all spooked when I moved the wrong way in my car seat. Too bad it was a cloudy day - the pictures all look monochrome, but I guess that's kind of interesting in a way.

As the temperatures dipped and the sun came out, I set out again to try and get some better pictures. I got to watch a buck sniff after a female for quite a while. She didn't seem interested, turning away as he would start to think about mounting her. She didn't even bother to pick her head up from grazing to get away from him time after time.

In my trips around the park, deer and turkeys have been abundant. So far the elk have been elusive and I've only encountered two of the bison herds since the roundup. It's kind of funny to see them out there with radio collars on their necks and numbers glued to their butts. About 75 bison out of about 180 were returned to the park during the roundup.

New 3D Models

I created three new 3D models for Google Earth today, three very important buildings in Medora: the old chimney, the Maltese Cross Cabin, and my apartment building.

Although none of my original, detailed buildings were selected by Google for official automatic representation in the 3D warehouse, I hope that these new models with photographic textures will make the cut. I'll have to go back to Peaceful Valley and take new pictures of the building so I can make a new model.

You can download the collection here.

If you don't have Google Earth, you should by now.

New Feature on Blog

I'm trying out a new feature on the blog, a way for you, the reader, to check a box at the bottom of the post to let me know your thoughts on the post.

Bison Roundup A Success

The THRO bison roundup went well over a two day stretch. Good weather on the first day allowed the helicopter to drive two of the larger groups of bison into the wildlife handling facility where they were processed and either shipped or released back into the park at the end of the exercise.

After the helicopter drives the herd into a funnel-shaped fence, they are driven down a long, fenced chute by a specially-rigged end-loader and into a circular enclosure. The circular enclosure has a pivoting gate that allows a tractor operator to sort of sweep the animals toward the first chute. My job, along with the person across from me, was to open and close the gate to allow only a few animals in at a time. We found six was about the right number. Only one or two tried to jump out of the chute. The big bull the first day got into another bison and blasted it into the wall, smashing through a 2x12" board. From there, we were to drive one or two bison at a time into the sorting bin, a smaller round enclosure opened and closed by hand that is used to get the bison pointed the right direction before going into a series of narrow chutes where they are finally tested, weighed, and assessed before being released to the appropriate destination pen.

It's a beautiful thing to see the whole system working and everyone doing their job as part of a big machine. I was excited to see everyone working together without arguing and being very helpful and respectful of the animals. While it might be work for some of the staff, I had a lot of fun. It's not every day I get to slap a bison in the butt with a paddle.

Foul weather ended helicopter operations a day early (it's snowing now and expected to be a blizzard tomorrow) but enough bison had been rounded up by the end of the first day that we had enough to work with for the full two days and had culled enough out to satisfy the biologist. All in all, it was a successful operation. It's just too bad it's over; I had fun!

Back Home In Medora

The drive to Medora was smooth as could be with little traffic, no breakdowns, and no animals jumping across the road (a tumbleweed did). Some changes have occurred since I left, mainly the removal of the big pink house I used to see out the bathroom window (replaced by a needed parking lot and apparently an underground geothermal heating element for the new construction across the street), the little white house that was a bakery (that was never open while I was here) and massive piles of construction stuff where the Rough Rider Hotel expansion is underway.

I made a run into Dickinson to visit the Queen City Barber Shop, a necessary stop for me; I was starting to look like Teen Wolf. I got groceries at Wal-Mart and spent too much even though I forgot shower spray. I contend that spending a little more now will level out the spending later on. It didn't help that I forgot to pack condiments before I left home. The guy working at Subway told me he ate a Subway sandwich "every day since I've been working here," which had been two years. I found that a little sad. Subway, while more appealing than a burger and fries most of the time, is nasty.

Mercifully, I am not alone in Medora as some of the summer staff is still around. OK, so that's only about two extra people. A group of us went to Golva, ND to the little bar there for Halloween. When Dan called the establishment on his phone in the car (it was our plan B), he asked them what was going on over there, to which came the reply we could all hear over the phone, "Waiting for you!" Sounds like a fun party, right? We vowed to make it a fun party.

Before last night, I couldn't have showed you where Golva was on a map. In fact, Google Maps doesn't even show a road going to Golva. "Golva" is pronounced "GAHL-vuh."

Well, we got there and it wasn't exactly a biker bar, which was what I was expecting. Instead there were only pickup trucks parked outside. There's a good sign as we roll up dressed as two goths, a gecko and a nature documentarian, and a guy from North Dakota. I was dressed up as the guy from North Dakota and was pretty sure I'd be the one getting beer bottles thrown at my head. Needless to say, everyone knew we were not from around there. We did not make asses of ourselves for at least the first 20 minutes.

While no one was there, we attacked the free chips and three kinds of homemade dip that were being served in unreasonably large bowls. I don't know why the bowls were so big; it would have been epic if everyone there would have finished off just one of the three goliath cauldrons of dip. After a couple Budweisers - the only beer they had - we went up and hit the karaoke machine. I thought we did alright. I sang "Folsom Prison Blues," and the owner thought I did a good job and handed me a list of songs to look at. I confessed I didn't even know the person who wrote and performed any of the songs and declined. No one got up and danced while I sang that one, nor when we shouted "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," as a Top Gun-style duet, but they jumped up and danced when the owner/host/MC sang obscure country songs. Feeling first enthusiasm for our work, then shame, we continued to scour the songlist for some sort of comeback that we never settled on. No one else in Golva had the balls to go up there and sing. Maybe we were just that much better at singing and the locals didn't want to embarrass themselves. Maybe they just knew better.

People began to show up after a while: a cow and milk maid, Little Bo Peep (who I think got her costume at a Stripper Supply Outlet Store) and a black sheep, a witch who would cackle at an obnoxious volume quite often, and a host of people who looked like they just grabbed every wig/mask/weird shirt/accessory they had and threw them all together in a confusing mess. We got bored and left before the costume contest started. We were certain Jen's home-engineered (not just home-made) gecko costume would have won. She won in spirit.

Oh, and I made away with a free gift that was actually brought over to our table by one of the bartenders: a Golva Bar magnetic name and address fold-out thing, apparently for all the hordes of people I'd be meeting at the posh Golva Bar.

Snazzy!