Home on the Mountain
With faith and patience, purgatories end. I have passed through the fire and noise, and returned at last to the peace and coolth of my mountain.
Atlanta in August
Last night I was supposed to transfer in Atlanta to a midnight flight to Asheville, the last of the night. Our flight arrived about five minutes late, but then when we got to the terminal the jet bridge wouldn’t deploy. We sat there for about half an hour while the mechanics worked on it, then had to push back and move to another gate. Before we could do that, they had to remove all the service vehicles, re-stow the luggage, and ensure that everyone was buckled back in. Then it took a while to get a vehicle to shove the plane back…
Ultimately my flight left during the more than an hour we spent trapped on a plane elsewhere in the airport. As a result I’m still here, having slept about five hours at a hotel before returning to the airport and standing in a vast security line for two hours. I am enrolled in Global Entry, which also grants TSA Pre-Check, so I imagine I was better off than most.
Now my flight is delayed, and the air conditioning at ATL is no match for the August heat. Atlanta in August is rather akin to a stay in the warmer regions of Purgatory.
I suppose one pays for the opportunity to travel in various coins, including the ugliness of major airports. Hopefully this last leg of the flight home will happen sometime today, and I’ll be free again in the mountains of home.
Goodbye to the West
A few last images of the Big Hole Mountains and the distant Teton Range from later on today once I got up high. 
Saving dogs
My work on the county committee to look into our animal shelter's critical overcrowding is going well. We've reduced the shelter's adult dog population from over 60 to 41 as of yesterday. We just raised $16K in about a week by publicizing the need to buy some temporary outdoor kennels to relieve overcrowding. The public is stepping up, and it warms my heart tremendously.
A Perfect Tracking Day
This is my last full day out West; by this time tomorrow I’ll be headed home. So, I took the day off to do one more hike. I decided to hike to a mountaintop of the Big Holes, but the guidebook was misleading as to where the trailhead was (some five miles back in the National Forest) so I initially got on the wrong trail. I realized it quickly, but I decided to follow it a while because it was perfect tracking weather.
Disgruntled Jujitsu
I went to see my niece get awarded a stripe for her belt in jujitsu, and while I was there I’m afraid I hurt her instructor’s pride.
I didn’t mean to. He likes to draw the adult observers into the lesson, like he did one of the moms. I think he thinks they might get interested and sign up. She couldn’t break out of his headlock.
He asked me if I thought I could break a headlock, and I said I could. I threw him, broke his headlock, put him in a headlock, and then held him in spite of his best efforts for a minute or two until I let him go.
He was embarrassed and angry, but he could have tapped. I didn’t do anything else, I just held the lock. I was just giving him a chance to figure it out. Normally in jujitsu class, if you don’t tap and keep struggling it’s a sign that you want to continue trying. I’d have let him up at once if he’d tapped out, or otherwise asked.
Oh, well. He literally asked me for it.
A Good Feed
Tonight we were invited to a party by my mother’s friends, and they put out a good table. Yesterday I made braised moose again — wine rather than beer braise, packed with fresh basil — fresh basil pesto, and fire-roasted tomato, mango, and chipotle salsa. The previous day I grilled a chicken, with fried potatoes and a salad that mom made.
Mom says that she’s gained six pounds since I arrived.
UPDATE: My mother’s final total was seven-and-a-half pounds gained. She says she’ll have to diet until my next visit.
Top of the Summit
From left, Mt. Owen, the Grand Teton, the Middle Teton, and South Teton. Below, the Jedediah Smith Wilderness.
Wind Cave
Of all the hikes I have taken, this destination looks and feels most like it belongs in Arthurian myth.
I’m Going to Jackson
A bona fide Stetson hat, with fake dirt, $265 new.
Flying into Jackson Hole airport (JAC) a week and a half ago, I rode a nearly empty jet with a completely full First Class cabin.
Playground of the rich, the old cowboy town is a sad sight. All isn’t lost: at The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar I ran into a group of the Punishers MC, off-duty cops coming home from Sturgis.
Mostly it’s just rich people wondering if people will consider their newly-purchased hats fake. I advised one lady that the straw hat she was considering would be legitimate until Labor Day. If you buy one of these faux-dirt Stetsons, Dude, you’re on your own.
Conservatism Properly Understood
I have long thought the true value of conservatism is it's cultural and philosophical component, as opposed to the various political movements contending for power under its banner. I certainly think that conservatism should be, and is, more than a single-minded focus on free market economics. The free market is simply a tool, a means to an end and not an end in and of itself.
Consequently, I was pleasantly surprised to read this excellent article. I had never heard of the poet Peter Viereck before, but thanks to Mr. Syck's article I was directed to Peter Viereck's equally excellent article, "But - I'm a Conservative! While I certainly didn't agree with every point he made, I still think his essay makes some valuable points that conservatives would do well to embrace. That essay reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from another conservative writer, Russell Kirk.
This should boost EV sales
First California wanted to force people to quit using gasoline to power their cars. Use the electric grid instead! Then it became apparent that an already stressed grid would get worse if California continued to close nuclear and fossil-fuel power plants, while at the same time encouraging drivers to charge up their EVs on the grid. The answer is breathtaking in its brilliance: if the grid is stressed, run the EV-charging stations backwards, so the EV batteries are drawn down to support the grid they're supposed to be using to charge up on. Apparently some EV charging systems already work as a two-way device, the idea being that owners might want to use them as emergency power for their households. The new idea is to require all EV charging systems to work that way, and not for the benefit of the owners' households but for the whole grid instead.
The Horse Pull
After a pleasant early dinner with Thos., I took my mother to the horse pull.
The winner, pulling 9,500 pounds for over eight feet, was a local team.
It’s an interesting sport. The ‘full pull’ is 27.5 feet for no reason anyone seems to know. They pull in stages that increase by a thousand pounds to eight thousand, then by five hundred each thereafter. Beautiful draft horses.
Singing the Song of the Common Man
Virginian Oliver Anthony came across my twitter feed today, and instantly I'm a fan. Have a listen and maybe you'll be too.
The song that got him attention is "Rich Men North of Richmond" (in other words, around D.C.)-
I also liked this Waylon cover of his, recorded on his cell phone, so forgive the sound quality-
And he seems like a pretty nice guy who it would be nice to sit a spell with-
(h/t @shouse)s://twitter.com/Shouse34/status/1689793700224733184?s=20
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