This one ran last autumn, soon after I left the paper and before I left on vacation:
When I was a mere lad, the Sears catalog was the size of a big city phone book, and if memory serves, it showed up several times each year. And it was full of EVERYTHING! There was clothing, for men, women, and kids. Tools, oh lord there were tools. If you knew what you wanted and what you were doing, somebody said you could build an entire model T Ford right out of the Sears catalog, one part at a time.
After the new catalog arrived in the winter, I'd find the toys right away. Tons of toys. And just in time for Christmas fantasy. I lusted for those toys. And you could buy a bolt action 22 rifle for just a few bucks. I lusted after those, too. And motorcycles! You could buy a motorcycle from a catalog! And when I got a little older, there was that HUGE section with nothing but lady's underwear, and that's a subject for some other essay, but yeah, I lusted after that once, too.
Sears doesn't send out catalogs anymore. Now I have a computer on my desk, and every morning before the workday begins I fire up that time and travel machine and go to bookmarks, and punch up codywy.org, and there live my webcams. And I get to look at downtown Cody, with no traffic to speak of on the main drag, and then down the page I go to Jackson Town Center with its elk antler arch, and then up to the return to webcams button, and I get to look at the Tetons through a bunch of different cameras, and then I look at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone where sometimes I can see bison or elk lounging about, and Old Faithful, and a bunch of other neat places, and I lust after it all.
A couple of weeks ago it snowed in the mountains of Wyoming, and I watched that on the webcams, and I went nuts over that. And now each day with my puter I monitor the onset of autumn color, as the cottonwoods and underbrush begin to change, and now finally the aspens are chiming in. And I lust after that. And I note that the color is late this year, and that means maybe, just maybe, we will find a lot of that color when we get to Wyoming next week.
I've got that anticipation ache in my gut just thinking about it. It's like getting the new Sears catalog. The options are not only endless, but they are all good. We get to go to Wyoming for a whole week! I have tags for pronghorn, and I'm hunting a good area, so the prospect for some fine wild game meat for the freezer are excellent. We should be able to get to Cody to have a cup of coffee on our property and say HI! to a few friends. We will probably get to see Yellowstone and Grand Teton again. And with any luck, I will have time to show Joie some really neat places, like Mt Rushmore and The Badlands and Devil's Tower. I am excited beyond belief.
I'm hoping for aspen color at Angel Creek, just out of Wells, NV, which is our first night's stop. And there might well be color along the North Platte, where there should be lots of cottonwoods. And I want to see Teapot Dome, the source of one of the first of many major corruption scandals that set the precedent for the sad state of our current government.
Wyoming has over 500,000 pronghorns, more than the total human population, and 25,000 of them reside in my hunt area. Game and Fish offers over 2000 tags for my area, and I have two. I have both rifles sighted in, the newer 7 magnum and the old 6 Remington that dates back to the early 50's. I've taken two pronghorn so far with the 6 mm, and it is my sentimental favorite.
I've made my lists and the gear is coming together. I checked the oil in the truck, and the windshield washer jug is full of the freeze proof cleaner stuff. Soon all I will need to do is plug in the GPS and the CB radio, and we will be backing down the driveway. I cannot wait. Anticipation is such sweet torture.
No comments:
Post a Comment