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.