Chicago general interest thread

We almost got it on Ashland. Time to revisit that plan.

 

The Red Line in Indy is a really nice addition. It’s done really well and stretches of it run with a curb down the middle of the road. High enough to prevent people from driving their cars in the lane but low enough for the bus to drive on top of it. Basically you get three lanes of traffic and still have parking on both sides. This could work on Ashland, although I’d prefer a train.

 

Here is the bear that chased us yesterday. Good thing my sister is a park ranger at Yellowstone. She got the tourists who were too close out of the way.

 

Damn. Yer sisters got skills.

 

Even more.
We were in the valley and there were hundreds of bison. Several decided to meander into the street, blocking traffic in both directions.

The ranger in duty to clear the "bison jam" (one of my sister's seasonal underlings) had no clue what to do. My sister pulls over, jumps out of the car and says, "Jessica, get the bat!" My sister grabs the 'bat' a PVC tube filled with sand and stones and calmly and confidently approaches the bison.

A guy yells out "You're gonna need a bigger stick."
"I'm not going to hit them!" She shouts back and begins banging the bat on the pavement. Within seconds, the offending bison sauntered off the road and rejoined the herd.

Apparently, they hate the sound of this thing.

There was a round of applause.

"The bison whisperer."

My sister, with bat in hand.
The result of her efforts.

 

Nice!

 

That's Lamar Valley. Great place in Yellowstone. I took the wife there and we were able to see bison, elk, a grizzly eating an elk and a wolf waiting for leftovers all in the same place on the same day. It is amazing how big wolves actually are in the wild.

 

See, I’m all for getting away and being one with nature, in my head, until I remember that nature is filled with bears, and bison, and goats, and bats, and mosquitoes, and bees, and snakes, and …. Um yeah- maybe I’ll just plan a staycation in the city instead.

I like how the dude immediately thought the bat was for striking animals, and other than the size of the bat was totally okay with it! Yeesh.

It does sound like a pretty fun trip though!

 

I want to know what she said under her breath about those numbskulls.

 

I want to know if she’s single.

 

Oh, it was NOT under her breath. She shouted at them.
Even when not in uniform she is pretty forceful.

 

Yes, very.

 

Hayden Valley.

 

You are correct. I was thinking of the one at the northeast of the park.

 

That is still closed from the flood. The Northeast is the one part of the park we could not visit. Even the roads are washed out at the moment.

 

When I would go with family we would hike in Lamar Valley because not too many people would go there. It's always nice going a couple miles away from the road and not see another human being.

 

That is one of sister's favorite places, along with the "back country".

When the flood happened, she went to Old Faithful since she was literally the only person there. As a supervisor, she was not furloughed when the food shut the place down.

 

She has what one of my older daughters would consider her dream job. She was training as a Wisconsin DNR warden, then with the Door County Sheriff, now she's working with the Dane County Sheriff's office.

When she was living in the Upper Peninsula there was a backup on a road through the forest. She got out and saw a group of people standing around an injured deer that was run down. They didn't know what to do so she got her Buck knife out of the glove box and cut the deer's throat. After that they dragged the deer off the road and everyone else went about their business.

 

She sounds hardcore. Good for her.

 

She always wanted to be the son I never had, until Jiggs. Now she's on her second husband with 4 kids of her own & 3 step kids.

 

Wake me up when Tudor's Biscuit World shows up in Chicago...