Bouncing Around like a Dented Ping Pong Ball

 

High Country Ramble

With a rare moment with no  pressing demands my trip to Moffat County and the family gathering allowed me to travel two summer only Wyoming roads. First was the Snowy Range highway between Laramie and Encampment. Saw a nice sized moose near the summit. I’ve seen few moose in my life but he seemed fairly large.

 These fences make sense once you consider digging post holes in the rocky ground found here.

The second was Battle Mountain Pass from Encampment to Baggs.

Sunbeam, CO

Birthplace of my father. His maternal grandfather operated a toll bridge there. Not much left of it but hand built around 1900 what still stands impresses me.

 Side note. My father’s address when he was drafted in WWII was Skull Creek, CO. He spoke of questioning looks from fellow service members and ended up with the nickname, “Sunshine”.

 The roads North to Interstate 80 in Wyoming are mainly paved and the scenery worth the trip. Being prepared is prudent.

Juniper Springs

An all too common fate for many places is closure after the owners retire/die. Many cousins grew up swimming here so 9/2 we convoyed to the springs with me providing a ride for three. Not much left but a few area volunteers try to keep the pools intact.

Military Service and Patriotism

A comment I made at LL’s blog led to more thought.

In our youth my cousins and I listened to our Great Uncle and WWII veteran uncles swapping war stories at family gatherings. I know I, and I suspect several cousins, were motivated to join the military so that we could take an active part of those sessions. Further, we looked up to those men and wanted their acceptance and approval.

Excluding the Coast Guard, I have cousins that have served in all branches. One son was an Army Medic and his son, a 5^th Generation soldier, is in the South Carolina National Guard.

Last weekend at the family gathering there were three Marines, two Sea Bees, two Combat Engineers and one Destroyer sailor. All cousins or married to cousins.

I doubt any of us care to be “thanked for our service”. It was something we did because it was expected.

Coffypot had a good post on Falsebook.

 “If you want to thank me for my military service, vote for candidates who put veterans before illegal aliens”.

Mass Shooting

Promoting hysteria, Iowa State University employees have developed at ‘scientific’ way for forecasting future mass shootings. They build on data collected by the “Violence Project”. Oh the horror! A possible 700+ mass shootings is forecasted (in a country with a population of 316,000,000+). If you have nothing better to do, you can read it here.

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More “Settled Science” B.S. Gamers will Solve Global Warming

I’m too much a Latter Day Luddite to swallow this crap. IMO, the authors should find real jobs solving real problems. YMMV 

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Geothermal Electricity Production

The idea has appeal. The devil is in the details. Cynical I distrust anything Emperor Polis has his hands on. More regulation, more private sector costs, and more state employees aren’t, IMO, a sound financial plan. 

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Buying Vote while Virtue Posturing

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 The Sun had nothing to do with this???

Decades of gradual warming due to human-caused climate change and an El Niño in the Pacific Ocean nudged global ocean temperatures to record levels in 2023.

Click bait lead to set the ‘proper’ tone. Human caused is ‘settled science’.  No mention that long term temperature recording didn’t start until just after the end of the Little Ice Age (1300 – 1850) in North America. Pacific Ocean record keeping started sometime around 1910 and only in a few places (LaJolla, CA for example). Does anyone remember GIGO? (Garbage in, Garbage out)

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Paper Straws

Seem they have health hazards. Since I don’t live in CA I’ve never encountered them. Around here the plastic straws come wrapped in paper. 

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Too bad all the evironazis can’t embrace the old craftsman’s adage, “Measure twice, cut once”. As in think your idea through  the many possible outcomes. Could we ask the USDA to embrace the concept instead of pushing Solyent green? 

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Conspiracy nutcase, me? Consider, our ancestors took measures when they heard wolves howling even when the pack was far away.

FAFO Update

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 Future passive aggressive hostile inflammatory blogs lie ahead but, for the moment, Banner needs to go for a walk

 As always, YMMV

Sombrero Horse Drive

(credit visitmoffatcounty for the header photo)

Looking forward to next weekend when I plan to drive to Maybell, CO for the annual Sombrero Horse Drive. The Sombrero Ranches are a large dude ranch operation with several CO locations. They winter their large herd in the Browns Park area which has milder (relative) winters and the horses can get by on range forage instead of hay.

Come Spring, the horses are rounded up and trailed to a ranch outside of Craig, CO where they are prepared for the dude season and distributed to the various Sombrero operations (Estes Park being a large one, for instance).

Some time back, the owners found they could charge a big fee ($2,500 this year) to dudes wanting the cowboy experience. 

Maybell is something of an epicenter for the extended clan on my father’s side and the horse drive has evolved into a family reunion of sorts. So we all gather to drink adult beverages, tell lies, and sneer at the dudes. As the years go by, fewer beverages are consumed, more lies are told, but the sneers remain constant. It is also possible to smell some cannabis being smoked. Tsk, tsk!

Here is a video shot by one of my more talented cousins. Best to start at the 2:24 mark.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Yc__Cpvbg

Lots of Sombrero stuff on You Tube for those interested. One cousin has put up several under, “White Family Homestead”.

Browns Park is home to several bands of wild horses. Sombrero keeps wranglers with the herd during the winter to recover the mares the wild stallions steal. Gets interesting, it does.

Should you be interested in the wild ones, this lady has devoted years to photographing them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Y1EbE3gjk

Looking forward to the trip. My coworker and I have swapped days so I have no  pressure to get back. Worked out well as he has a family gathering the next weekend.

Of course, will post a snap or two when I get back. 

Maybell is on US 40 between Craig, CO and Vernal, UT. Most visitors to the Dinosaur National Monument just pass through. The residents work hard to keep the town alive with volunteer work. The one restaurant serves as good country fare as you will find anywhere and you will not find a cleaner establishment. You may not want to visit in the winter as the coldest temperature recorded in Colorado one winter was  in Maybell, minus 61 degrees. Camp sites at the city park are $15 a night, showers $3, and the place is clean. All isn't perfect as the local kids are noted for mischief. On the night before the start of hunting season, air was let out of many tires and the entrances were padlocked. The town response was bolt cutters, every available air compressor brought to the park, and several Wrangler seats warmed.

Family Lore

This is a post about some family history for family members. It may be of interest to others.

My father’s family was in dire financial condition during the Great Depression. There was a total of twelve children. One passed during infancy. My father was number five in the birth order. Each year they did attend the Moffat County (Colorado) Fair where each child received their annual allowance, 25 cents.

One year at the fair, when my father was five, he disappeared while a barnstormer was preparing for his show. The brothers and sisters were becoming concerned when they couldn’t find him.

After the barnstormer landed, my father climbed out of the plane. He had convinced the pilot to accept his quarter to give him a ride. During the barnstormer’s performance, my father sat between the pilot’s feet. The story goes that he had a grin from ear to ear.

My father never lost his interest in aviation. His eighth grade education kept him out of pilot training during WWII, but, in the CBI theater,  he did make some trips “over the Hump” as what he called a cargo kicker.

In later years, he and I shared a Piper J-4 while getting our Private License. He then bought a Cessna 182. The man could fly an airplane as well as anyone you might meet, but was damn careless. We had a few heated conversations about that. The Cessna pictured wasn't his but is the same model.

He died at age 64, probably from undiagnosed Obstructive Sleep Apnea complications. I miss him to this day.

Skull Creek

This is a snippet of family history a relative asked me to write. It may, or may not, be of interest to anyone else.

My late father was born in Sunbeam, CO., a spot on the map. When he entered the Army in WWII, his official home of record was a Post Office Box at Skull Creek, CO.  That Post Office has been merged with Dinosaur, CO. Dinosaur will always be Artesia, CO to old timers. He was teased about both towns, and had a First Sergeant nickname him “Sunshine”.

Skull Creek was the site of a sheep/cattle war fight, supposedly, when cowboys stampeded a flock of sheep over a steep bluff. Family lore is some of the family “might” have been involved. In any case, the area got the name from the sheep skulls.

http://www.canyoncountrywilderness.org/skullcreek.htm

The extreme Northwest Corner of Colorado is known as Browns Park. The winters are milder than the rest of the area and many livestock owners let their horse roam free there to “winter”. Probably the largest single owner of horses in Colorado is the Sombrero Ranch, that stocks multiple dude ranch sites in the summer.  Their spring roundup is a sought after adventure.

http://www.sombrero.com/custompages/horse_drive.asp

Damned if I would pay $2,000 to do that hard work (that as a youth I had to do for free).

 The town of Maybell is part of the tradition.

http://www.maybellwomensclub.com/index.php

It is  a foolish man that tangles with the Maybell Women’s Club. I’m related to a few. Nice ladies, mama bears under their genteel exteriors.

One of the better sources for the history of the region is by John Rolfe Burrows.

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Old-West-Stayed-Young/dp/B001R2E0XS

The area was home to various outlaws and other outcasts. One of the more notorious family’s were the Bassetts.

http://www.amazon.com/Bassett-Women-Grace-Mcclure/dp/0804008779/ref=pd_sim_b_1

My father’s maternal grandfather operated a toll suspension bridge over the Yampa River at Sunbeam. Some of his descendants (and affiliates by marriage) still live in the area.

http://www.canyoncountrywilderness.org/skullcreek.htm

At one side of the river were the family home, road house, stable, and a small store. Family lore has it Butch Cassidy was a frequent visitor.

My father was born in the middle of twelve children. His father died when he was fifteen and his mother moved her children from the Golden, CO area (Wheat Ridge) back to Moffat County, and Maybell. She sold the Wheat Ridge property, including a sod house,

http://wheatridgehistoricalsociety.org/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=32

that was originally  owned by my father’s grandfather.

This was in the middle of the Great Depressions. My father’s older brothers and sisters had scattered leaving him the oldest son still at home. He worked at many different jobs, as did his mother, to keep the family going. At one point he delivered mail to the Browns Park area. In the summer, by a Model T., in the winter by horseback. The various ranchers, including the Bassetts, would give him a place to sleep and meals. These were hard, desperate times. One of his sisters contracted polio and was in a coma for three months. Still going strong today, she is a prominent business owner.

My father was a subsistence hunter. Seasons? Licenses? Hah! He was the best shot I’ve ever met. My sister and I could beat him on paper targets, but never taking game.

He had a gift for languages and math. Which I didn’t inherit, blast it. In India,  in WWII, he learned several regional dialects. Many years later, he accompanied his sister and brother -in- law as guests aboard an Indian freighter. The crew as amazed he knew their language. His brother in law asked the captain about his level of fluency, to which the captain replied, “total fluency”.

During his life, he was a cowboy,  logger, ran a gold mine dredge, a rancher, operated a dude ranch, guided hunters, was a section foreman for ten years on the old Denver and Rio Grande, worked in two coal fired electrical plants, delivered milk, was a shop steward while the Republican County Committeeman, was a machinist, and owned and operated a restaurant. Hard man to pigeonhole.

He died, at age 64, from congestive heart failure, brought on by undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea.

His brother and sisters, and their children, all were,  or are, workers. Not a slacker in the bunch. What needs to be said is we are not unique. In that corner of the world, our family is part of a hard working community of tough people.  Traveling around the country, I see a lot of the same thing, at least in the rural areas.

So, if you’ve come this far, hope you weren’t bored. As to the relatives who will want to argue over details, well, hell, I would expect nothing less. As a clan, we make a herd of hogs on ice look like a precision drill team.

Small, Small Town USA

Some of what is best about this country is found in small towns. Seems a sense of community is lost as population density increases. Of course, privacy increases with population; hard to have a totally private life in a small town.

The internet now gives these small town a bigger voice. Economics have killed off many a small town newspaper. In place, we have blogs. I would direct your attention to a small town blog HERE.

http://www.maybellwomensclub.com

Nothing unique, just a sample of small town life. (Someday I will learn how to do hyperlinks.)

This little town looms large in my paternal family history. Various forefathers have roamed that part of the country since just after the Civil War (excuse me, The War of Northern Aggression) as both solid citizens and down and dirty outlaws. Maybe both at the same time.

The Ladies Club is today, and has always been, a potent force in the town and surrounding areas. It takes a fool hardy man to tell a Moffat County woman what she is going to do. Personally, I would rather play chicken with a coal train.