Christmas In Kansas

On December 21, Rick and I headed to Kansas to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with my family. It was also our second wedding anniversary. My parents were planning to take us out for dinner in Wichita, but a storm blasted Seattle and delayed our arrival by several hours. No worries though since we would be in Kansas until January 2.

Our stay was packed with the usual Christmas things, like Christmas Eve at Grandma's house opening presents. Here is a photo of me with my Uncle Mike.

We spent that night in Topeka at Grandma's and then had Christmas dinner at Uncle Jim's. The turkey and stuffing were as delicious as ever.

After the rush of the holidays, we settled into our routine in Ark City: wake up around 8 and have coffee, spend the morning reading by the fireplace, have lunch, spend the afternoon reading some more, napping, or shopping, happy hour at 5...and then the highlight - watch the deer. My dad started putting out cracked corn right near the house for the deer to eat. Almost every night five of them would arrive to eat and even frolic in the yard!

I caught the sun just before it disappeared.

We did a puzzle.

We watched OSU lose and KU win.

Rick painted the bathroom.

We visited my Aunt Wilma, and she made me my favorite chocolate meringue cookies.

We celebrated New Year's Eve with some of my old high school friends.

Mom cooked a crown roast of pork.

I love spending time with my parents.

Canada Mountain Goat Hunt

I hunted the first week of November with Marty Lightburn of Rocky Mountain High Outfitters out of Jaffray, BC. He did a great job but was dealt a tough hand. We had terrible visibility for 5 of the 7 day hunt.

We stayed the first three days at a cabin he has up in the alpine. The cabin had been helicoptered in and was very comfortable given the near constant rain and snow. We did get out the first full day, November 7, but the goats had moved out of the area for some unknown reason.

The second day rained and we had very limited visibility so we didn't venture far from camp. A single white tail doe was spotted close by; neither of us could figure why a whitetail was so high that late in the season.

I'll not drag out the story too long but suffice to say I spent many hours, after traveling even more hours, standing around a campfire waiting for the visibility to increase to more than a couple hundred yards.

On the last day of my hunt we got a break and spotted 5 goats above us - not a good sign since we were looking for a big billy and they're normally alone. The spotting scope showed a couple of billies so we commenced our climb - only about 1700 feet vertical up a slide that wasn't all that bad of a climb.

We got into position and looked more closely at the two billies. One was older with a broken horn and the other was younger with stilleto points. I elected for the older critter 383 yards distant. The two packs made for a solid rest, the 100 gr. TSX at 3450 fps from my 25 WSM, 700 Ti hit about as perfect as I could hope and he tumbled about 75 yards down the hill - closer to the pack animals. The goat was in the red circle (above) when I shot.

That's Marty in the first image, he's a heck of a guide but I take better pictures! Billy is 8 7/8" and 5 1/2 years old, he'll be a half body mount. The image doesn't show how very well he is haired out.

Swantner-Trahan Wedding

Last weekend we traveled to Huntsville, AL, for the wedding of Rick's nephew, Dan. The best part (besides seeing Dan so happy and with a permanent grin on his face) was getting the three Swantner brothers together in the same place for the first time in years.

Dale, Ed, and Rick at the NASA rocket museum:

Rick with his nephew, Dan:

Permanent smile Dan with his new bride, Lisa:

Proud parents of the groom, Gloria & Dale:

Walter's Ferry

My life-long friend Jennifer came to Boise to visit again this year. As Rick said, I am lucky I have friends who are willing to travel across the country to come visit me. So since Jennifer flew all the way from Wisconsin to Boise, we decided to treat her to a visit to Walter's Ferry.

I had heard a lot about Walter's Ferry from my friend Mike. He goes there a lot, it seems. He never found the words to accurately describe this place, and neither will I. I certainly was not prepared for what I saw.

This place has a lot of bronze statues, like this one of Albert.

And this one of Mark.

Birdhouses, like this one, were everywhere.

And then there was real, live weirdness. While trying to photograph the peacocks, this bunny rabbit appeared from nowhere. It followed the peacock around like it was its mother, even though the peacock wanted nothing to do with the bunny.

I could go on and on sharing pictures of the things I saw at Walter's Ferry, but it's just better if you go check it out for yourself. Come visit me in Boise, and I'll take you.

Rick's Antelope

Maybe Rick will want to tell his own story. Here's mine.

Yesterday Rick got an antelope (pronghorn, actually) near Fairfield, ID. I was there. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny fall day. We had pursued this buck all morning, at least four hours, with no success. We finally decided to try to get in front of the herd, which required hiking maybe 500 ft up the side of a hill and around the rocky top. This is where I lost Rick. He had spotted the herd and told me to get down. I couldn't see the antelope, so I just stayed down about 15 ft behind him and tried to stay quiet. He was moving ahead, crouched down. I followed. The terrain was tricky with the slope, sage, and rocks. My water bottle fell from my pocket with a crash, but Rick kept going. I tried to be more careful and quiet, but that slowed me down. Rick was on a mission. He didn't look back and I was falling behind. He crossed a pile of black rocks. I heard a buzzing noise. I have never heard a rattlesnake, but somehow I knew that's what made the noise. I froze. "Rick, Rick!" I whispered as loud as I could, but he didn't hear me. He was going for that buck. The buzzing noise stopped. I made my way slowly across the rocks, but there it was again. I could tell it was a good distance away, so I kept going. I was really moving slowly now - afraid of scaring up another rattlesnake. By this time, Rick was out of sight. He had rounded side of the hill, and I wasn't sure which way to go. But then I heard a gunshot, muffled, to my right. He got the buck with one shot. I'm sorry I missed it, but hey, everyone gets their first rattlesnake experience sometime, I guess...if you live in Idaho.

Branson, MO

Two weeks ago, Rick and I flew to Kansas to meet up with my parents, and then the four of us drove to Branson, MO, for the week. Despite having lived my entire childhood in the neighboring state of Kansas and gone to college in Missouri, I had never been to Branson. Although not surprisingly, neither had Rick.

When I told my friends I was going to Branson, I received this response several times: You're not old enough to go to Branson. True, Branson is full of retired folks. I'm not sure why. I guess they really like seeing music/dance/comedy shows - clean ones, with a predominant country music and "I love the USA/thank you veterans" theme. Bus-loads of retired people come to Branson from all over the US.

Branson is weird. It is a pretty part of the US with deciduous-covered rolling hills and the huge fingered Table Rock lake that goes on for miles. It's like Vegas meets Palm Springs...with a Midwest flair.

The first weird thing was Lambert's in Ozark, MO, where we stopped for lunch. They throw hot-buttered rolls at you when you aren't looking. This place is famous. Seriously. Just ask people from the Midwest. We waited over 45 minutes to get a table.












We stayed in our own little cottage in a village with a Cape Code theme called Stormy Point. It was really very cutely decorated. Here is a shot of a couple of the units. Ours (not pictured) was yellow and had a whale on top.

While in Branson, we saw several shows. I liked Jim Stafford (guitar wizard) the best and Dixie Stampede (eating a whole chicken with your hands while cheering for the fake rodeo) the least. Bob Anderson (Rat Pack impersonator) was fantastic although surprisingly less popular with the Branson crowd. The Twelve Irish Tenors were great entertainers...and very good looking. (just Mom and I went to that show.)

We also played golf three times, which was a hoot. Branson has a LOT of courses. But we only played one: The Don Gardner par 3 municipal course. It was hilarious. First of all, there is a playground in the middle of the course. There are no identifiable fairways - it's all just grass. There are only five greens - you play holes 2-5 twice. Each green (except the first one) has two pins, a yellow one and a white one. And there are yellow and white tee boxes. I can't tell you how many times one or all of us played to the wrong pin. The course was small and easy to walk, only cost $10/person, and since there were few people there, we felt little pressure to do well or hurry up. Dad, Rick and I had a lot of fun. I even think Rick's brother, Ed, had a good time too.

My favorite place in Branson was not in Branson. Just south of Branson, hidden by the trees and sitting beside the White River, is Big Cedar Resort. Owned by the Bass Pro Shops, this is a gem of a resort tucked in the Ozark mountains. Here is a shot of one of many lodges, cabins, and cottages.

This trip was packed with good stuff (the OSU game we missed but still got free ice cream, golf and shows in Branson, seeing my grandma back in Ark City, and watching the whitetail eat apples from under the trees in my parents' yard), but one of the biggest highlights was seeing Rick's brother Ed and his wife Janet who drove up from Little Rock, AR. Rick supposes it's been 10 years since they last saw each other. It turns out that Ed and Rick look a lot alike. Except for one thing...Ed is really tall. Here we all are in the cottage.

We had a great time. Thanks to my parents for putting it all together.

New Truck

Rick decided it was time to trade in the old Chevy, so we did it. After several days of agonizing over the decision (another Silverado or the Toyota Tundra), we decided to go with the Tundra. Check it out!