miles to another 7000-something foot summit. There was an Idaho DOT
weather station at the top and those aenenometer cups were spinning
like mad.
After cresting, it was a mostly smooth 30 miles into Mackay
(pronounced MACK-ee) where I happened upon the tail end of a town
parade and after a little asking around discovered that there was a
rodeo later in the afternoon. That settled that and I headed to the
Miner Hill Grill to grab a hot sandwich while the rodeo got set up.
FYI--they serve fry sauce in Idaho. ...and here I thought that was a
phenomenon exclusive to Utah.
I saw calf roping, barrel racing, whatever-you-call-it-when-they-ride-
those-bucking-horses, team roping, and bullriding.
I ended up stopping for the night in Arco, which was the first town in
America to be powered by nuclear energy. Their summer festival is
Atomic Days, which is next month. My legs had more miles in them, but
between here and Idaho Falls is 60-some miles of desert with no
services save a highway rest stop that one out of three locals polled
claims has drinking water. Heading strait east in the morning I
shouldn't have trouble getting through there but I really didn't feel
like attempting it today after all that rodeo business.
This whole trip through the great west I'm becoming more and more
interested in birds--what they find to eat, what they're saying to
each other, which activities are cooperative and which ones are just
every bird for themself. I think I might hunt a little for some
binoculars in Jackson when I get there (hopefully Monday).
Also: any birders who've been messing with the iPhone SDK, let's make
something really good...collaborate with the Audubon Society...the
whole deal. I think there's a really fantastic mobile application
waiting to be developed there...search for colors and characteristics
based on geolocation, add your own date/location/photos to a species
record. Someone will develop this application, I just have a suspicion
that it won't be of the highest quality because there likely wouldn't
be substantive financial reward as motivation.
1 comment:
Jonathan,
The birding idea might actually generate some money. Judy and I as older folks have become interested in birds and are surprised at the number of people involved. There are way more than I ever imagined. the issue might be whether or not they are folks who would use a cell phone.
We have some bird pictures and songs on a Palm TX put out by the national Wild Life Federation, but they are sold by region (ie Montana, etc) and an application that used Geo-tagging would be much better.
There is an online site that lets you indicate colors on a picture of a bird and then tells you a possible identity. Something like that tied to the GPS for iPhone would be terrific. The potential market is very big... but old folks are pretty cheap!
Congratulations on the hill climbs. You are really covering the miles up and down.
Regards,
Fred Simpson
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