NORTHERN ROCKIES There are some photos you really don’t want to take. One is an extreme close-up of a quiescent Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park — the kind of photo you’d get by standing as close as possible and pointing your camera down at its small pool of water — just before the geyser […]
Heard Around the West
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Plans foiled
CALIFORNIA Never at a loss for novel ideas, the animal rights folks at PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, want the mayor of San Francisco and other city leaders to change the name of the city’s Tenderloin District to the “Tempeh District.” Tempeh, for those who prefer hamburgers and are unfamiliar with it, […]
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“The country is gonna go to the bow-wows”
WYOMING To say that former Sen. Alan Simpson, 79, of Wyoming doesn’t mince words is putting it tepidly. On MSNBC’s Hardball TV show recently, he blasted presidential hopefuls from his own Republican Party because of their positions on social issues: “Who the hell is for abortion?” he asked. “I don’t know anybody running around with […]
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Empty nests
IDAHO When the real estate market went bananas in the middle of the last decade, Teton County, Idaho, couldn’t approve new subdivisions fast enough. In fact, the Idaho valley, which is located just over the pass from pricey Jackson, Wyo., was named one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. But when the housing […]
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“Sign up now, get free gun.”
MONTANA What’s next — offering a free derringer with every mammogram or a free Uzi with the purchase of a La-Z-Boy? You just might see it happen, because guns sell. The managers of a Radio Shack in Hamilton, Mont., found that out after they placed a giant sign above their Super Store: “Protect yourself with […]
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Defense mechanisms
COLORADO “Plants can’t run and hide” in the world, so over time, some have evolved the ability to alter their structure when they perceive a threat. That’s the mechanism now being exploited by Colorado State University biologist Jane Medford, as she and some 30 undergraduate and graduate students genetically engineer plants to signal the presence […]
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Bear opens bear-proof locker
CALIFORNIA The black bears that call Yosemite National Park home are legendary for their smarts. They’ve honed efficient methods of ripping the doors off minivans, and they can skillfully yank open refrigerators. That’s why campers at the park must remove all food and other bear attractants and put them in “bear-proof” lockers that are so […]
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Golden anniversary
UTAH We’ve always loved those before-and-after photos of couples about to celebrate a half-century of wedded bliss. In pictures from 50 years ago, the bride usually looks like a teenager with a bad haircut, while the groom strikes a serious air and looks almost gaunt. Fifty years later, each has usually completely filled out, and […]
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Danged ornery critters
MONTANA It’s a Tea Party world in Montana’s Legislature these days, and Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, sometimes can’t believe his ears as newly elected representatives talk blithely of creating armed citizen militias and “nullifying” a slew of federal laws, reports The Associated Press. Schweitzer calls many of the proposals from the new Republican majority […]
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Are you on the endangered species list?
THE SOUTHWEST Nikki Cooley is a Colorado River guide for Arizona Raft Adventures who also “happens to be Navajo,” reports the boatman’s quarterly review. So it must have struck her as particularly odd when a tourist on one of her Grand Canyon trips casually asked, “Are Indians extinct?” No word on her reply. THE BORDER […]
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A hearty feast
WYOMING After Wyoming Wildlife published a big story called “Golden” about the hunting prowess of golden eagles, reader Jim Frailey, of Harrisburg, Ill., told the magazine about a stunning eagle attack he’d witnessed purely by chance back in the early 1980s. He was taking a break from driving a delivery route when he noticed a […]
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Wild lives and wildlife
IDAHO Some poachers don’t understand the meaning of the word, or maybe they just can’t accept that they can be caught in the act. Rex Rammell, a Republican who recently ran for governor of Idaho, was stopped by a state Fish and Game agent last November just as he was hauling out an elk he’d […]
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On the lam
WYOMING There’s nothing like a bunch of bad yaks to get the Cowboy State’s Legislature riled up. Woolly wanderers, these particular yaks have never been content to graze the grass growing solely on the “Yak Daddy Ranch” owned by John and Laura DeMetteis. The big guys routinely seek out other pastures and crash through fences […]
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A cheap vacation that got out of hand
THE WEST John Daggett, one of the West’s iconic characters, died recently at age 82, though his amazing feat of body-surfing the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon 56 years ago will no doubt live forever. Back in April 1955, Daggett and his friend, Bill Beer, both 20-something Southern Californians, got the crazy idea of […]
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“Hey, that’s my hay”
NEVADA “Forget the needle; it’s the haystack that Nevada sheriff’s deputies are looking for,” reports The Associated Press. Thieves driving a long-bed pickup have been swiping hay at night, targeting a ranch about 15 miles southeast of Elko, Nev. In the third and latest incident, some 2,000 pounds of hay disappeared from the ranch where […]
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Cultural exchange
OREGON Someday, there may be a Disney movie based on a black bear named Windfall who didn’t know she was a bear because she was brought up to be a princess, doted on by two loggers in the dense backwoods of Coos County, Ore. Writing in the Medford Mail Tribune, Mark Freeman says the father-son […]
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Is that a gun in your Speedo?
WYOMING When the city council of Cody, Wyo., met recently to update policies for the town’s recreation center, it did more than overhaul some rules for playing games. In response to a gun owner’s complaint, the council also voted unanimously to permit all firearms carried legally — whether concealed or carried openly on someone’s person, […]
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Llamas and coyotes and bears, oh my
THE WEST We’ve always relished the anecdote about the brand-new Wyoming congressman who made the mistake of bringing his border collie to Washington, D.C. Border collies originally hail from the English-Scottish borderlands, and they are super-smart and quintessentially alert: They live to round up animals, including ducks and people — virtually anything that moves if […]
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Cock-a-doodle-brouhaha
COLORADO Don’t even think of toting roosters along if you’re moving to Ridgway in western Colorado. The birds are unwanted, and not just because they tend to cock-a-doodle-doo at the crack of dawn. They’ve become the symbol of a town that’s no longer rural, relaxed and live and let-live. For proof, just ask resident Janet […]
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Tougher than most
WYOMING Surely she was exaggerating, but maybe not. Republican Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming’s lone congressional representative, insisted that she knew people in her state who would actually choose death over taxes — resolving to quit dialysis or other live-saving treatments — “in order to die so their estates won’t be taxed” if the Bush-era tax breaks […]