FoxCraft

"Orange You Glad You Saw the Game?"

In South Dakota, seeing hordes of people wearing orange only means one thing—opening weekend of pheasant season. In a certain part of southeastern New Mexico, seeing hordes of people wearing orange only means one thing—opening weekend of football season.

For whatever reason, possibly including its proximity to Texas, where high school football is less a sport than a religion, this is a town that takes its football seriously. How seriously? Well, the windows of all the downtown businesses display pictures of the players, the cheerleaders, and the orange bulldog mascot. And if Halloween happens to fall on the Friday night of a home game, they postpone it (Halloween, not the game) to the next night.

It pretty much goes without saying that on game day, practically everyone in town wears something orange. Even though we were going to the game, I didn't exactly have a dog in the fight. Nevertheless, trying to be polite and blend in, I dug through my suitcase for the closest thing to orange I had, a coral-colored tee shirt.

As soon as we walked through the gate, I realized this was not high school football as I have ever known it. To me, a high school football field is just that—a field, with reasonably groomed grass, goal posts that may or may not have a fresh coat of paint, a few sets of bleachers, a concession shack, and maybe a couple of bathrooms.

This was a stadium—with tiers of seats on both sides, a high concrete walkway circling the field, at least two concession stands, end zones made up of orange and white squares of artificial turf, a giant inflatable orange bulldog mascot at one end of the field, and skyboxes, for Pete's sake. Plus fireworks at the beginning and end of the game. (Most of it privately funded, I should note, for anyone concerned about the wise use of tax dollars.)

And orange everywhere. Blaze orange. Tangerine. Yellow-orange. Ochre. Faded rust. Not just shirts and caps, either, though both were plentiful. Shoelaces. Lapel buttons. Seat cushions. Bags. Hair ornaments.

No orange hair, though, which I found surprising and a little disappointing. There were some kids with orange goop smeared on their faces and hair, but they looked less like football fans than members of a struggling wannabe grunge band called Zombies of the Pumpkin Patch. This may explain why that particular look was limited to a handful of junior high boys.

The moon came up, nearly full, at the beginning of the second half. It was—I am not making this up—orange.

Amid all this color, my well-intentioned coral shirt looked very, very pink.

On the other side of the stadium, supporters of the visiting team, from a town some 60 miles away, were out in force—and in blue. I kept my feet under the seat in front of me so no one would notice my potentially disloyal blue socks.

Oh, and the football game? The visitors made seven touchdowns, were ahead by 14 points at the end of the first half, and scored a total of 49 points. The bulldogs made nine touchdowns and ended up with 63 points. It was the best high school football game I've ever seen. Also the longest; the second quarter lasted an hour.

By the end of the game, I had a better understanding of why football here is such a big deal. It was almost enough to make me think about buying something orange. Not a tee shirt, though. A seat cushion.

"It Was a Dark and Stormy Night . . ."

All the classic elements were present: The group of people thrown together in a primitive environment. Attacks by wild beasts. A less-than-successful search for food in the wild. Fire. Floods. Ominous weather. Gunfights. Mysterious, threatening strangers. Even a pregnant woman ready to go into labor at any moment.

It could have been a great low-budget scary movie. But, actually, it was just another typical family camping trip.

Just in case a little hyperbole may have crept into the first paragraph, perhaps I should clarify. Maybe a campground along the Missouri River in eastern South Dakota doesn't exactly qualify as a primitive environment. But hey, the cell phone coverage was spotty at best—and the closest wireless Internet access was at least three miles away.

The wild beasts? Okay, they weren't bears or mountain lions, but mosquitoes. There were hordes of them, though, and they were vicious. The search for food in the wild? Well, those who went fishing didn't quite catch enough for everyone for supper.

The fire, of course, was necessary for the roasted marshmallows and S'mores. The flooding and the ominous weather were real enough. Just ask the two people who went swimming under what in drier years is a picnic shelter. The thunderstorms, thankfully, passed north of us and all we got was a few drops of rain.

The gunfights were real, too, with countless shots exchanged from loaded weapons. One of the main participants was a retired law enforcement officer. The other was a toddler with less training but at least as much determination and a pretty good eye. The innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire didn't seem to mind. It's not a bad thing to be shot with a water gun on a 90-degree day.

The nine-months-pregnant mom missed her great opportunity by not going into labor. Her husband swore he could have the camper hooked up and on the road in seven minutes if necessary, but he never got the chance to prove it. Oh, well. Some people just don't have a full appreciation of the finer points of dramatic tension.

The mysterious, threatening strangers? Unfortunately, they were all too real. The fright factor is a little too genuine when you're awakened at 2:00 a.m. by a couple of drunks shouting and beating on one of the tents in your campsite. Even if the tent isn't yours, you're uncomfortably reminded that tents don't come equipped with deadbolt locks.

When the staggering pair came back at dawn, they decided for some incoherent reason of their own to pull a marker post out of the ground. This was in front of the family tent where four little kids were sleeping. Their mother's reaction was, "Get the baseball bat out of the van!"

The drunks were hustled off down the road by a pair of brothers-in-law who were more than big enough—and mad enough—to handle them even without the bat. The loaded water guns, though, might have come in handy. Meanwhile, back at the tent, someone else was calling 911. It was quite satisfying a bit later to see a burly cop, looking like a stereotype straight out of Hollywood, holding one of the drunks upright by a pair of handcuffs as he marched him past our campsites. One of them was arrested, and their hearty-partying group was evicted from the campground.

We learned later that the drunks were part of a large family reunion whose members had reserved about 20 campsites. I'd love to have heard the story from that family's perspective. Were the rest of them angry at us for turning in their sons/grandsons/nephews? Or did the drunks belong to "that" family—the one that the rest of relatives only invite to reunions because they have to? Maybe it was a relief to have them gone.

I just hope the reunion organizers had taken all their group photos the day before.

Atomic Oaks

We were somewhere in the neighborhood of Carlsbad, New Mexico, at the end of several miles of rough gravel roads. The scenic view consisted of potash mines and oil wells on the horizons and a lot of mesquite in the foreground.

Mixed in with the mesquite were what our guide told us were oak trees. I had trouble believing this, even after he got out of the car and brought back what was unmistakably an oak leaf. These were nothing like any oak trees I had ever seen. Even the bush-sized scrub oaks at least look like trees. These were only knee high.

The supposed oak trees were dwarfed by the four-foot-high concrete marker that we had driven all the way out here to see. It contained a metal plaque commemorating "Project Gnome."

We were standing directly above the site of a nuclear explosion. On December 10, 1961, 1200 feet beneath this spot, scientists detonated a nuclear device at the end of a tunnel that had been excavated from a vertical shaft some 1100 feet away.

This was part of the Plowshare program, an effort in the 1960's to try to find industrial and scientific applications for nuclear power. Several underground explosions were set off in New Mexico and Colorado before the project was ended in the early 1970's, apparently without finding any practical uses for nuclear explosions.

One goal of the Gnome blast was to generate steam. Steam was generated, all right, but some of it got through the seals in the tunnel and leaked out through the shaft. The difficulty in controlling nuclear explosions may have been one of the reasons for ending the Plowshare program.

At the site of the blast nearly 50 years later, there wasn't much to see besides the marker, the mesquite, and the miniature oak trees. Were they some mutant life form, an unforeseen side effect of experimenting with nuclear blasts?

Nope. Not at all. They are Quercus havardii, or shin oak, described to us as part of the largest oak forest in North America. That's "largest" in the sense of geographic area, rather than "largest" in the sense of mighty oaks from little acorns growing. Their size is presumably a result of adapting to a dry, hot climate, and they were midgets long before anyone ever heard of nuclear power.

And the dangers of strolling through the site of an atomic explosion? Well, in May of 1962, scientists visited the cavity created by the Gnome blast and found it "hot" only in temperature. It was 140 degrees down there, but it wasn't radioactive. This site has been tested regularly over the past 50 years, and it doesn't have any more radiation than your average back yard. (If you'd like more information, check out atomictourist.com.)

The only real health risk in visiting Project Gnome today is losing your broad-brimmed hat in the wind and getting sunburned. Unless, of course, you happen to trip over an oak tree.

Who Dreamed Up This White Christmas?

South Dakota and its neighbors certainly ended 2009 with a white Christmas. A very white Christmas. Inches and inches of white Christmas. (It isn't really an accident that Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas" when he was in Beverly Hills, where his dream wasn't about to come true.)

Most of my family were among those who had a much whiter Christmas than they really would have preferred. Some of them, including my parents, were without power for at least a day. At least a lifetime on a farm has taught them to be prepared for bad weather, so they got out the camp stove for cooking and set up the lawn chairs near the propane heater in the utility room. Their biggest problem was the snowdrift that filled up their back porch and blocked the door. Shoveling out took a couple of days even after my nephew opened a path for them.

An aunt and uncle spent hours in the Sioux Falls and Denver airports, finally making it to their Montana destination at about 4:00 a.m. Their stories about the adventure didn't even mention being tired, hungry, or frustrated with the delays; they were too busy describing the wonderful way they were treated by kind strangers.

One sister's family (two daughters, two sons-in-law, and four small children) all made it to her house for Christmas—where they all got snowed in for three days. It's a good thing they're a family that likes to give books, games, and puzzles as gifts.

Other family members emailed notes about the snow that fell sideways and pictures of the huge drifts they had to shovel.

And my Christmas blizzard story? Mostly through luck and a little bit through good timing, we missed the storm completely. We drove from Rapid City to Denver on Christmas Eve, slipping in behind the big storm, and had mostly dry roads. The day after Christmas, we drove to southern New Mexico on completely dry roads.

Most people would say that was a good thing, and I would be forced to agree. Still, I feel as if we wimped out. Never mind that our trip was planned weeks earlier and the timing was coincidental. I still feel a bit guilty, as if we deserted our homeland and our hard-shoveling friends and family during a time of need.

Oh, we had snow here in New Mexico, too. About four inches fell on Tuesday. All of it had melted by mid-morning on Wednesday. No storm, no inconvenience, no shoveling, and no problems expected when we head north again on Saturday.

Of course, by the time we get home, all the snow in our long, sloping driveway will have had time to settle in. The drifts will have melted a little and frozen a little. By the time we finish shoveling a hundred feet of hard-crusted white Christmas, I bet I won't feel the least bit guilty anymore.

No Tree-Hugging Needed Here

These are not trees to be hugged.

Not even if you ignored the stern signs about staying on the path. Not even if you had arms long enough to embrace their enormous trunks. Not only would hugging a Sequoia sempervirens be impossible; it would be disrespectful. Ancient redwoods are too dignified for hugging.

On a visit to California's Bay Area last week, we had a chance to walk through Muir Woods. This stand of old-growth coast redwoods was preserved a hundred years ago by a local couple, William and Elizabeth Kent, who bought the land and later donated much of it to the federal government. It was set aside as a national monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.

Since nearly a million visitors show up every year, we were fortunate to be there in December instead of July. There were still plenty of people on the main pathway, but on the less-visited secondary trails we were able to walk with the silent attention this place deserves.

Muir Woods has neither the oldest nor the biggest of the giant redwoods. Its trees are the taller but more slender cousins of the Sequoia-dendron giganteum. The tallest one here is only about 250 feet high and the widest a mere 14 feet in diameter. Give them time, though. Most of these trees are still young adults of only 500 to 800 years old. They haven't seen half their expected life spans yet.

Redwood trees were around some 150 million years ago—in fact, they covered a great deal of the continent until climate change limited them to the Pacific Northwest. One of the reasons for their endurance may be their unique methods of reproduction.

Seedlings sprout from the tiny seeds carried in the trees' cones, of course. New growth can also come from burls, which are woody growths on the bases or sides of the trees that contain dormant buds. If a tree is injured, new trunks can sprout from these burls.

It's common in Muir Woods to see a ring of trees forming a family circle. Sometimes they surround the fire-scarred hollow trunk of a long-dead giant. Sometimes all that remains of the mother tree is the space where it grew centuries ago. I don't know whether these burl-sprouted trees are genetically identical to their parent trees. If they are, that makes such trees almost immortal.

Maybe that is why such a sense of ancient life and wisdom pervades these woods. Walking here, it's easy to believe in wise gnomes and ageless tree spirits. This isn't a malevolent place like the dark, frightening forests of old fairy tales. Instead, it seems to regard human visitors with benign detachment. We may be a little larger than the squirrels and birds, more numerous than the deer, but our comings and goings are still of little import in the long lives of the redwoods.

One section of Muir Woods is called Cathedral Grove, for obvious reasons. I assume the great cathedrals were a feeble attempt to recreate the awe-inspiring grandeur of old forests like these. But the whole place, with its towering elders, feels like sacred ground. It's a place to walk softly and with respect.

These trees don't need any hugs from the likes of us. But if you happened to see one of the gnomes, and if you asked nicely, maybe it would shake your hand.

Boiled Bison, Anyone?

Some of the geyser areas at Yellowstone might appear at first glance to be tempting natural hot tubs. On a chilly fall day, the rising steam can seem to invite a visitor to settle in for a warm bath—or at least to try the water with a toe. (Assuming, that is, said visitor can ignore the smell of sulphur and disregard the silent warnings of the dead stubs of pine trees standing with their toes in that same water.)

I'm sure somewhere in the Yellowstone thermal area are warm pools that can be and are used for relaxing soaks. They are, however, most definitely in the hidden minority. The major geyser areas are surrounded by raised wooden walkways, flanked by stern signs warning visitors not to set foot off the paths. Some of the pools are acidic enough to burn through leather and most of them are hot enough to scald. Anyone foolish enough to ignore the signs risks being badly burned or even scalded to death. This warning isn't over-protective, either; people have died in these pools.

Still, it was ironic to notice the natural features that surrounded many of these warning signs—buffalo tracks. During colder weather, the park's bison tend to gather near the hot springs. I don't know whether they drink the water, which must be awful if it tastes anything like it smells, or whether they just hang out in the warmth and exchange office gossip.

One of the shallow geyser pools we saw was named "Beauty Pool." We wondered if this was where the buffalo came for beautifying mud packs. If so, we decided, it wasn't doing much good.

We also wondered, with all the warning signs and the obvious risk to human visitors, why we didn't see any places where half-ton bison had crashed through the crusted surface into one of the hot pools. Did we just not recognize the signs of such accidents? Do they have some instinct that warns them away from dangerous areas? Or are they just lucky?

Or maybe there is another explanation. Maybe any evidence of buffalo-steaming had been covered up. After all, most of the restaurants in Yellowstone have buffalo on their menus. That meat has to come from somewhere. You can probably order it any way you want—as long as it's boiled.

Where is Hell, Exactly?

An exasperating thing happened on the way to this article; I tripped over my own research.

Last week I visited Yellowstone National Park for the first time. A trip to such a spectacular place certainly ought to provide plenty of material to write about, so I dutifully set out to do so.

In the park I had seen references to John Colter, who was an early mountain man but first a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. At the end of that trip, he promptly headed back into the mountains to trap for furs, and he was one of the first non-Indians to see the Yellowstone area. It's a common story that his descriptions of the geysers and hot springs led to the place being called "Colter's Hell."

Well, that gave me a clever little opening paragraph about having made a trip to hell and back, which could lead nicely into my own descriptions of the geysers, and I was off and running. Then I made the mistake of doing an Internet search for "Colter's Hell."

It seems that there is some controversy over whether "Colter's Hell" was ever actually used to refer to Yellowstone. It probably was a name instead for a smaller area of thermal activity near present-day Cody, Wyoming. That may be a minor distinction in the overall scheme of things, but for a nitpicking looker-up of stuff like myself it's too big an issue to ignore. God forbid that I should perpetuate a falsehood, no matter how common. Neither did I have the time or energy to turn a brief article into a full-fledged research project on early Yellowstone.

So there went my clever opening and half my article, and I was left with nothing much to say.

Except that Yellowstone is an area almost impossible to describe without superlatives. Talking about the mountains, lakes, geysers, and hot springs requires a whole thesaurus of adjectives like spectacular, awesome, and incredible.

I was prepared for that kind of beauty and grandeur. I was not prepared for harshness, as well. The mineral-crusted ground, the dead trees mummified in white sediment, the smell of sulphur, and the acerbic oranges and greens of the hot pools made the areas surrounding the geysers into forbidding tracts of wasteland. They were impressive, certainly, even beautiful in their own stark way, but hardly welcoming or appealing.

"Colter's Hell" suited them so well. I'm still wistful about not being able to use it.

How Many Bikers Does It Take to Get to North Dakota?

Logic Problem: Thirteen people, on five motorcycles followed by two cars, are traveling from South Dakota to North Dakota. A sleeping bag on the fourth bike in line comes unfastened and falls off. The rider on the fifth bike hits it, and it pops loose the spring on his kickstand.

Question: How many members of the group does it take to fix this problem?

The Math: One to pick up the offending sleeping bag and stash it in a car. One to gouge open his hand on the kickstand spring. Two to pick up the bike after it tips over. One to hold the bike upright. One to walk along the shoulder of the highway looking for a piece of wire to tie up the kickstand. One to find some rope in the trunk of a car for the same purpose. One to get a water bottle and wash blood off both biker and bike. One to provide tissues for drying the wound. One to find the first-aid kit and apply bandages. Six to offer sympathy and moral support. Two to take pictures. One—at the end of the trip—to figure out that if you pull the kickstand all the way up it relieves the tension on the spring enough so you can easily replace the spring with one hand.

Answer: Nineteen. If that doesn't make sense to you, it's probably because you weren't there.

I've never made a road trip with bikers before. If you want to get really technical about it, I still haven't, since I was among those in a car instead of on a motorcycle. I did, however, learn several things about traveling on a motorcycle.

For one thing, you don't just hop on the bike and head down the road. You check such things as the tire pressure. You put on your protective chaps and jacket. You check to make sure all your gear is securely tied on or locked in its proper compartment. You put on your helmet. You lift the bike off its kickstand. You climb on. Then you head out. It's a bit like traveling in a small airplane—you do all the safety checks first, every time, because they matter.

The other thing I learned is that, on a motorcycle, the journey matters more than the destination. Having someplace to go is just an excuse to get out on the road. Riding is the whole point. (That, and stopping at every place between Belle Fourche, South Dakota, and Belfield, North Dakota, where it's possible to buy ice cream. There are more such places than you might think.)

We did, by the way, also enjoy the destination—Medora, in the North Dakota Badlands. Teddy Roosevelt ranched here for several years in the 1880's. His neighbor the Marquis de Mores founded the town (named for his wife), built a packing plant and a hunting lodge, and lost a fortune trying to ship processed beef east and west. The museums are interesting, Theodore Roosevelt National Park is spectacular, the people are friendly, and the Medora Musical is terrific entertainment. It's a great place to visit—even if you don't have a chance to get there on a motorcycle.