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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64852
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Oh, and I though I could drive in there and get a White Castle Burger???
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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GLACIER (MAYBE) PARK
One joke deserves another.
Drove by this entrance just a few weeks ago..
..and sent a dire post card home.
[Edited on 3-19-2015 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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FRYING PAN MONUMENT...found at Long Beach, Washington.
Seeing this display prompted us to stop and shop for bacon, eggs, bread...Don't shoot us, you nutritionists! What do you think...hash browns, too?
Gracias, Co-pilot. Where's the 'Like' button?
I'll do this at the next stop....maybe, but..
..more likely like this!
And so it goes....
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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BeemerDan
Nomad
Posts: 187
Registered: 1-13-2011
Location: Port Orchard Wa
Member Is Offline
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World largest Flyrod, Houston BC
Not much of a fisherman, but thought this was worth a stop and a pic
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BeemerDan
Nomad
Posts: 187
Registered: 1-13-2011
Location: Port Orchard Wa
Member Is Offline
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Not really a monument, but it sure got my attention, Dynamited the brakes when I came over the hill and saw this.
Good thing I carry spare brake pads
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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Hmmm...something oddly familiar about that monument..
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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Boonjum Monuments - found in the desert near Catavina, Baja.
The tall and sometimes strange shapes of the boonjums or cirios of the Natl Desert near Catavina present great photo ops for any who venture out into
this scenic place. A place my daughter, when she was so young, so long ago, used to call..."The Land of the Giant Rocks."
This one reminded her ...and me... of a popular cartoon bird.
A Desert Bighorn Sheep?
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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DEVILS TOWER MONUMENT NE WYOMING
Remember 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'?
We camped at it's base and had a most pleasant stay. It surprised me to learn that this is our nations first National Monument,
designated so by Pres. Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. Rising about 1265 feet over the surrounding terrain, it is theorized by some to be a volcanic plug or
igneous intrusion. It figures in native American folklore and was a well-known landmark in their travels. I did not climb it to check for alien
visitors.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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LDS Temple
Architectural Monument.
The Mormon LDS temple on I-5 near exit 28, north of San Diego, La Jolla area. Built in 1984.
Splendiferous is a good word to describe the view of this Mormon religious monument that never fails to catch my eye when driving I-5 near La
Jolla. It seems gothic, but really not. A stark comparison to Europe's dark cathedrals.
The exterior finish is marble chips in stucco giving the building a white glow. The temple is brightly illuminated making it even more noticeable
at night. A white jumble of crystalline spires, full of symbology and topped with gilt sculptures glistening in the sun. As anyone who has seen it
can attest, it makes quite a statement.
If the interior is anything like the outside, I would love to have the experience of a full tour inside, but can recognize it is members only and
closed to the general public.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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MONUMENT To A Near-Extinction
World's Largest Buffalo
I had just became a teen when this was contructed in 1959 at Jamestown, ND. Located near the east-west Interstate 94, we would see it on every trip
back and forth across the state. Always an informative stop.
The American bison or buffalo is the largest mammal on the North American continent. This magnificent creature was given its common name by early
French explorers who called them "les boeufs," meaning oxen. Throughout the years, the name went through several changes from "buffle" to "buffelo"
and finally to its present "buffalo." Bison is the correct scientific and common name, but buffalo is widely used and also accepted. Bison were given
many names by native peoples, including "tatanka," "pezhekee," and "iinii," among many others. Tatanka in our neck of the woods.
The fossil record shows that over time bison went through many evolutionary changes. One prehistoric bison had horns measuring nine feet from
tip to tip.
Their numbers up until about 1875 staggers the imagination. Millions of buffalo/bison, once roamed North America, grazing the plains and prairies and
populating the mountains. We may never know just how many buffalo once roamed North America, although estimates range from 30 to 75 million. The
range of the American bison extended over about one-third of the entire continent of North America...starting at the Atlantic Coast.
The Badlands in western North Dakota still show the evidence of buffalo wallows...huge bowls carved into hillsides by buffalo 'dusting' themselves
clean. They became playgrounds for me, my brothers and sister... and we staged many mock buffalo-'tatanka' hunts in them as kids, not to mention
Indian attacks and marauding Hole-in-the-Wall bandits. I must have been trampled, scalped or shot a hundred times in those dusty wallows.
Historical documents around the time of Columbus's arrival describe the animal's importance to the indigenous people. According to early explorers,
"the plains were black and appeared as if in motion" with buffalo herds. I read this entry in a fur trader's journal..Alexander Pope, at a museum in
Pembina, ND, where the trader describes a huge southbound buffalo migration moving past his post that "stretched west as far as the eye could see and
took nine days of continuous movement to pass. The dust from the herds covered everything and the noise from their hooves sounded like
rolling thunder and made it extremely hard to sleep."
Woven into the fabric of Native American life for millennia, the buffalo was revered and honored while being their main food & materials supply.
For centuries, bison and humans coexisted on the Great Plains. The bison was the mainstay of Plains Indian life, providing food, clothing, shelter,
and tools. Every part of the animal could be used for one purpose or another. This way of life persisted for thousands of years until
over-exploitation by white hunters and traders in the 1800s drove the bison to the brink of extinction.
Some scholars argue that extermination of the buffalo was an official policy of the US government in order to achieve extermination of the Native
Americans, particularly those living in the Western Plains. The Europeans were swarming the eastern USA from overseas...and the emigrants needed to
settle the 'empty' prairies and plant crops.
BISON SKULLS ...shown here being stockpiled prior to being shipped east to be ground into fertilizer. At the end of the hunting period came these
bonepickers. You rarely find a lone skull and/or bones out there today.
BISON HERD PAINTING....a realistic depiction of what the herds looked like on the Great Plains.
The demand for hides was high thoughout the States and Europe. 25,000 of them made this pile for just one shipment east.
The slaughter left bodies strewn all over the prairies.
The cumulative effect of this unregulated and unethical slaughter was the near-extinction of the American bison. By the turn of the twentieth century,
the thundering herds of millions were reduced to less than 300 wild bison.
Thanks to conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt, those surviving buffalo are today thriving in National Parks, like Yellowstone in Wyoming and
Teddy Roosevelt Natl Park in North Dakota. Add to that the buffalo being raised on private ranches makes for a brighter future for these magnificent
beasts.
Teddy Roosevelt Natl Park. Hah...I recall one night when I was about 16 and was on a date with my sweetheart. We went for a drive north of
Medora out into part of the Natl Park north unit, with which I was very familiar... and I admit to knowing that buffalo roamed at will in those
badlands. We were driving along in the moonlight on a low maintenance trail when suddenly we were surrounded by a herd of a couple hundred buffalo
that had gotten spooked and wanted to cross that trail....hey, it was their world.....it got a little tense when we lost visibility and my pickup
headlights could only pick up shining red eyes and rolling dust. I stopped and we sat there watching the massive brutes moving fast and spilling
around my truck, missing us by just a few feet. Wildly exciting to both me and my date, for sure. The bulls are massive, 2000lbs, 6 feet tall and not
friendly to interuptions. They finally all passed and we just sat there and laughed with an adrenalin rush..after having had the beejeebers scared
out of us! For a couple years she would often joke about 'where' I was going to take her next.
And that's what happened to all those buffalo...back in the day.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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durrelllrobert
Elite Nomad
Posts: 7393
Registered: 11-22-2007
Location: Punta Banda BC
Member Is Offline
Mood: thriving in Baja
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Don't forget the buffalo jumps created by the Indians
Like this one in Alberta Canada fficial name:
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump National Historic Site of Canada
Bob Durrell
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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Yes, A native practice of convenience for food and tools and if the terrain permitted, a good way to procure a winter's supply of bison. It's damn
hard to kill a 2000 lb buffalo with an arrow. Cannot be compared to the deliberate and wholesale slaughter of many millions of bison to deprive a
nation of people of their food source.
[Edited on 3-28-2015 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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A 'BLOODTHIRSTY' MONUMENT
MOSQUITO STATUE
This unusual skeeter monument is about 60km North of Winnipeg, Manitoba in the small village of Komarno. 'Komarno' is the Ukrainian word for
mosquito, and the area is home to some of the largest mosquitoes in North America, to which a lot of fishermen can attest to...like us.
We nicknamed this area "Transylvania of the North" a long time ago. For years, we heard many campfire stories about finding dry mummified human
remains in the forests...and tales of children carried off into the woods to be eaten at the bloodsucker's leisure.
It should be noted that the Ukranian's favorite fireside c-cktail is high-test vodka in a gallon jug.
I recall one canoe trip through this area when we were forced to hide under a tarp for a couple hours to escape the hordes that descended on us...true
story. If we had not done this, we would have been just a couple empty husks floating downriver.
I still can hear that horrible roaring & buzzing noise and the thousands of pointed proboscises sticking through the fabric...seeking our
blood. 
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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Coffee Pot Monument
Co-pilot and I came across this unusual monument on the grainfields of Alberta one summer while returning from a trip
to Alaska. Farming and ranching families are usually heavy coffee drinkers, so naturally we had to stop for a cup or two.
Also like home, the fields were blooming, so we had to get out there in the flax and canola.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
Member Is Offline
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Speaking of enormous herds of bison:
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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Igor, Marty Robbins was one of my favorite CW singers of the 50's & 60's. A group of amigos and I played and sang our version of his hits many
times out camping...songs like "El Paso". Plus I still have my old 'White Sport Coat'...but I think the 'Pink Carnation' is history.
Memories....
[Edited on 4-27-2015 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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Burger & Fries, please.
One of my favorites in a small mid-western town. A great lunch stop at an old-time 'drive-in'...a monument of Road Americana that
unfortunately is fast disappearing.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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durrelllrobert
Elite Nomad
Posts: 7393
Registered: 11-22-2007
Location: Punta Banda BC
Member Is Offline
Mood: thriving in Baja
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Here's another favorite with the native Americans.
Quote: Originally posted by Pompano  | DEVILS TOWER MONUMENT NE WYOMING
Remember 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'?
We camped at it's base and had a most pleasant stay. It surprised me to learn that this is our nations first National Monument,
designated so by Pres. Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. Rising about 1265 feet over the surrounding terrain, it is theorized by some to be a volcanic plug or
igneous intrusion. It figures in native American folklore and was a well-known landmark in their travels. I did not climb it to check for alien
visitors.
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Must be something to do with size and girth.
Bob Durrell
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Pompano
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8194
Registered: 11-14-2004
Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
Member Is Offline
Mood: Optimistic
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Certain monuments are not huge and opulent, but small and plain...and are where you find them. Sometimes very personal and existing just to bring a
degree of comfort and solace to mourning families. This one tells us the story of trucker Hector who lost his life at this spot on the Baja Road.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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