A photo, just to keep things moving along...

This is a cultivated variety of Colorado columbine in the "wild flower" garden of Rock Creek Resort, Red Lodge, MT, taken in early September of this year.

Icebergradio, for those who don't yet know about it

I hope IcebergRadio won't mind if I lift and share with you their self-description, since it's straightforward enough to make it unproductive to try to re-word:

"IcebergRadio.com is owned and operated by Standard Interactive, a division of Standard Radio Inc., the largest privately owned broadcast company in Canada.

Iceberg Radio is Canada's biggest and best online radio portal, featuring over 100 channels across a variety of music genres, bringing you the widest and most dynamic music selection online, all the time.

Whether your passion is rock, pop, alternative, electronic, jazz or classical, Iceberg Radio plays your kind of music, live, 24/7.

Unlike other online music portals, Iceberg Radio isn't a repetitive jukebox: It's music that's programmed by people who live and breathe new sounds, who don't just work off the charts, and who tailor their programming to what the audience wants to hear."

For those who listen to music through their computers, I can recommend this site above all others I have ever used. The variety and quality of the music, organized into "genres" with an additional selection of sub-genres, is unparalleled on the Web. My tastes vary widely and everything I've delved into from their menus has been more than satisfying. There are no replays, the stream is reliable, "Now Playing" is accurate and full of useful information (though on my system it has to be manually refreshed). And although there is occasional voice-over identification, and of course paid advertising on the site, it is in no way obtrusive. Try it for a treat!

Moose-O-Rama

Saw a total of 12 moose, an animal that was clearly designed by a committee, on this trip. Many were so close that I couldn't focus the camera decently; they're often really hard to photograph because they like to hang out in brush that on sunny days results in variegated lighting conditions.

Monday on the bus

Monday, in the middle of the morning, I took the number 6 Jackson Express from my home on the south side of Chicago to the Loop (down town). Standing at my bus stop was a woman, about my age, of evident South Asian heritage. I imagine she was originally from India or possibly Pakistan. We made friendly chat, and sat together at the front of the bus, where the seats parallel the windows and face the passengers across the aisle. As our casual conversation ran its course and we returned to our own thoughts, I glanced across the way and noticed the three passengers directly opposite. One was a middle-aged, pleasantly plump African American woman; next to her, in the middle, was a man of Mexican, Central, or South American heritage, with a good dose of American native in his blood. To his right sat a man with a strongly East Asian body build and facial features.

When I was a child, in a small Midwestern university town, with one exception from grade school, I knew no one of any extraction other than Christian- Caucasian-European. By the time I was in junior high school, I had several friends who were Jewish, which though distinctly non-mainstream, was not discriminated against, and a couple of others who spoke with accents, but from European, not New World Hispanic or Asian countries. In high school I knew three or four black kids. In the late 1960s-early 1970s, college, in the same neighborhood I live in now, was only modestly more diverse. How the globe has shrunk since then. It's only chance that I even happened to notice the world representation on the bus. Most of us no longer even think about those things.

The safe return

We've been back in Chicago for five full days, and we're relishing the many highlights from our quick Yellowstone-Tetons trip. With KLK along there was ample hiking, as evidenced yesterday when I took off my beat up old nail polish to reveal a great toe under the nail on my left foot that was a very pretty shade of light blue-green - that's what happens when you jam it on rocks and roots over and over again. It was worth it. Saw good friends, watched wolves and bears, lost our breath over scenery, dodged wildfire smoke - successfully on many days, obvious in this shot of the bright three-quarter moon. Now to go spray a little (well, OK, a lot) of Febreeze on my pack in the hope that it won't be tooooo obnoxious when I pull it out of its home in an old pillowcase next time.

God, and the Friendly Skies, willing...

Tomorrow we leave for a short, intense trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. Our first night will be in Chico Hot Springs Resort and Spa, in the highly irrigated Paradise Valley due north of Yellowstone's North Entrance. It's most certainly one of the prettiest spots on the face of the earth (and Chico's is consistently one of the best restaurants I've ever eaten in, by the way). Compare the photo of the irrigated greensward along the approach to the resort with the photo taken exactly two years ago of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone. The lump to the left of the road is Soda Butte Cone, an active thermal feature out there all by itself, relatively far away from any other thermal activity.
Note, of course, the color of the brush, mostly sage and forbs, (only a little actually qualifies as grass.) This is what Nature looks like at the end of a long, hot, dry summer. The fires creating the choking ash and smoke of the Web cam captures, below, have been quenched, and primarily through soaking rains rather than fire-fighting efforts, though some are still smoldering in places, and some small new ones have started. In spite of what some pundits claim, that the fires are due to chronic "mismanagement" of the forests, in truth their occurrence cannot be 100% managed. They are, and always have been, part and parcel of Mother Nature. We only hope they contain themselves to uninhabited areas and don't endanger lives or property.

Trip report to follow in a couple of weeks!!

Don't breathe too deeply

Looking over the Yellowstone River (just north of Yellowstone National Park) towards Electric Peak (within the park boundary)
August 13, 14, 15, 16, 2007

I feel like a butterfly

How about a Pink-Edged Sulfur? Colias interior, taken in Wisconsin, summer, 2004.

Pan's Labyrinth

Last night we watched Pan's Labyrinth. I was carried away by how good it is. I had been oblivious that it was set in the Spanish Civil War. I personally have not given that event much thought in, say, 30 or so years, but when I was last in Spain, Generalissimo Francisco Franco was still alive. I would not say that at that time (1973) he was very much alive; in fact he was patently senile (in the general sense of the word) and strikingly superannuated. However, his influence was still as pervasive as it had been when I lived in Spain, 10 years before that.

I wonder how many Americans (at least among non-Hemingway readers) are aware that there ever was a protracted, bitter, and bloody civil war in Spain that determined its politics, economy, culture and relationships to the rest of the world for 40 more years. It's likewise interesting to me that some 70 years after, a talented and skilled film maker, Guillermo del Toro, should settle upon it as a setting for his vivid, fantastical story.

The movie is full of graphic violence, of the non-gratuitous kind, and rich with metaphors and allegories that merit repeat viewing.

It was also a great pleasure to hear Castilian spoken again. That was the first Spanish I learned; I have long since become comfortable with Puerto Rican Spanish, easily as different from Castilian as any breed of regional American English is from same of the Queen's.

What a refreshing pleasure to see a stimulating, compelling, and meaningful movie.

Easier to do a slide show than to write amusing things

Bison on parade

Photoexperimento

Five 18mm photos taken from the top of Bunsen Peak in Yellowstone National Park, photostitched together, semi-successfully.

Photogenicity

Suddenly, whether due to rearrangements in canid spaces following wolf-reintroduction, other reasons, or serendipity, red fox sightings in Yellowstone are becoming a regular thing for me after years and years of never seeing a fox in the wild, there or anywhere. They are among my favorites, among other reasons, because compared to coyotes and even wolves, their markings and body types and sizes tend to be very individual.

We caught this one on point; the loud CHIP of the ground squirrel was simultaneous with the pounce. The disappointed fox did a 180 and trotted off from just up from the base of Bunsen Peak, across the road, and westerly out of sight over Gardner's Hole. I count it among the most beautiful animals I've ever seen.

Sometimes you don't need bear spray and other news

The photo* is of a very relaxed black bear, taken just south of Upper Terrace Drive, Mammoth, WY (Yellowstone National Park), on Saturday, June 16. This guy doesn't look like much of a threat snoring away up there in the tree, though I guess he could fall out on your head as you hike, oblivious, below...
And in other news...my favorite bear, grizzly sow #399, let some guy have it last week . I am sorry he had to suffer the pain and indignity of "lacerations to his backside" but he lived to serve as a reminder that as beautiful and watchable as #399 and her big brood are, and as much as she is is inclined to hang around roads and lodges, she is still a real, and a serious, bear, rising to the occasion when she feels she or her cubs or their food is threatened.

*Not my technically best, sorry, but you get the idea.

Why you should keep your bear spray at hand

Check out this very interesting video of a mother grizzly and cubs:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1249608579
I've not seen nor heard of an encounter like this before. The guy had more presence of mind than I would have and kept the camera rolling...