IditaProject Forum

A customer of mine, from AK, recently sent me these pics.

Wow, that's pretty amazing, braider. I can't imagine getting that close.

Nope, No, Uhuh, no way Jose!

We were at Yellowstone one year and the bison were grazing near Old Faithful. Idiot parents were posing their KIDS! their KIDS!! in front of this huge horned animal like they were at a petting zoo. Got mad when the ranger shooed them away.

When I first saw those pics I thought whoever it was had to be nuts. Then, I figured he was probably from AK and must of known what he was doing. Now I think both of those observations are true - he was nuts, but, probably knew what he was doing.
And, I've been in buffalo country, too - the Black Hills - and I know how dangerous they can be - I wouldn't take the chance, and much less, put kids up to it - I wouldn't even feed them out of a car window.

Those suckers can be notoriously bad tempered. This one fortunately seemed more interested in eating than running down the poor kids but what in all saints name was wrong with those moronic parents?? Don't answer that-I have a pretty dang good guess. And I would bet you a Hamilton that they went home and proudly showed off the vacation pictures to equally idiotic friends and relatives, and complained loudly about the ranger who made them stop.

Hi, Dianne here from just north of Boston. I've had an interest in the Iditarod since Susan Butcher was winning. That's when we first got any kind of news on it since she was a local girl. I've become a huge fan since we visited Alaska in 2001. I've tried to get everyone around me interested in it too. We have a Nowhere Near Nome Fan Club and a fantasy mushing league. We pick mushers out of a hat to follow and we assigned all but 10 mushers this year. That's not bad since very few of them had any knowledge of the Iditarod until I started it. I hope to get up there to see it in person some day. I don't post here often. I'm more of a lurker because I don't know anywhere near as much about the race or mushing that people on here do so I just sit back and learn.

Hi Dianne! I wondered if your Nowhere Near Nome group was still running the race from north of Boston! Good to see your numbers have grown.

It's always good to see old friends showing up every year. The new folks dropping in will be old friends soon enough! <3

It really has grown. It all started when I was working for my sister-in-law in her coffee shop. We put a map on the wall and tracked it. I updated it every morning. People would come in for their coffee and check out the map to see how their mushers were doing. She retired a few years ago but a big group of us that have become friends still meet every Saturday morning for coffee. Some have moved as far away as Seattle and some are just busy and can't make it for coffee but we hear from them every February asking to be part of the Iditarod. We manage to get a few new ones involved every year too. We pick the names from a hat to be fair to the newcomers that don't know any of the mushers. I had one guy this year who wanted to bribe me to give him someone good. He ended up picking Aliy. I should have taken the money.

Yes, you should have! The good news is Aliy will make him a fan for life.

flowerpower wrote:Nope, No, Uhuh, no way Jose!

We were at Yellowstone one year and the bison were grazing near Old Faithful. Idiot parents were posing their KIDS! their KIDS!! in front of this huge horned animal like they were at a petting zoo. Got mad when the ranger shooed them away.

I use to work at Skyland Lodge in Shenandoah Park, we had black bears coming up on the loading dock, back of kitchen, to see what they could find. The idiot parents would put their little children up on the dock to take pictures. Sometimes the bears were mommas with cubs. Those parents were very lucky none of their babies were hurt.