August 2022 - LastBestPlace

text humor
by LastBestPlace 28 Aug '22

28 Aug '22

FIRST TEXT MESSAGE: Hi, Morris. This is Saul, next door. I've been riddled with guilt for a few months and have been trying to get up the courage to tell you face-to-face. When you're not around, I've been sharing your wife, day and night, probably much more than you. I haven't been getting it at home recently. I know that's no excuse. The temptation was just too great. I can't live with the guilt & hope you'll accept my sincere apology and forgive me. Please suggest a fee for usage and I'll pay you. - Saul. Morris, feeling enraged and betrayed, grabbed his gun, went next door, and shot Saul dead. He returned home, shot his wife, poured himself a stiff drink and sat down on the sofa. Morris then looked at his phone and discovered a second text message from Saul. SECOND TEXT MESSAGE: Hi, Morris. Saul here again. Sorry about the typo on my last text. I assume you figured it out and noticed that the darned Spell-Check had changed "wi-fi" to "wife." Technology, hey? It'll be the death of us.

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a guy walks in to a bar humor
by LastBestPlace 22 Aug '22

22 Aug '22

A man and a giraffe walk into a bar. After a few drinks, the giraffe falls over and dies. The man begins to walk out when the bartender stops him. "Hey, you can't leave that lyin' there," he says. The man turns around. "That's not a lion, it's a giraffe."

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08/01-02/2022 The Stupendous Birthday Present (3/3)
by LastBestPlace 18 Aug '22

18 Aug '22

/*The Stupendous Birthday Present, part 3*//* */ Hurrah! We are at the pass. Time for a bite to eat and to celebrate, but .... I took my backpack off, set it on the ground, and as I bent over and reached forward to open it, the fierce wind blew my sunglasses off. And kept blowing them. And blowing. I could see them about 40 yards away, kind of near the edge of a drop off. I carefully went over and did retrieve them, but something was missing. The glasses almost blew down into the Boulder Creek drainage. It was only a few years ago at this same exact spot that I lost my good Tilley Hat, which became one with the park. This time I came away with a missing lens. Kiersten immediately named me "Pirate Jim", which means I now must keep these glasses forever as a prop for my celebratory photos when hiking. Kiersten broke out her brand new essential hiking birthday present -- a Glacier Distilling flask (with the glass window!). Filled with North Fork Black Label (aged 5 years). Cheers! /"I don't have to work tomorrow!!"/ Glug glug glug Part of being prepared means bringing along Theo's Chocolate to go with the whiskey. A stupendous moment. Happy Birthday! The trail ahead. Hard to believe that the views get even better From my phone, Sexton Glacier, below Going-To-The-Sun Mountain, with a peek of St Mary Lake. That's a lot of snow for August. If I had only brought my cross country skis I could have skied over closer to the glacier. May and August remain the only 2 months I have not skied in Montana. Same view from Kiersten's phone. Her photo captures the trail way down below on the left. We will zig zag back and forth downward before we get to that part of the trail. Snowball fight? Really? No more flask for you! Sadly, I have no photos of the sledding down the snowfields. Instead just the treacherous traverse over a snowbridge hoping it does not collapse. Observant readers will note that I did cross the snowbridge first to test its strength. That look that says it's your turn to take the lead. Wow & Wow flowers! All of the small streams that we crossed on the downhill eventually combine into Baring Creek, which is what cuts in to Sunrift Gorge. The trail parallels the creek the rest of the way. There are a series of outstanding red rock waterfalls through this portion. My parting shot. The sun is getting a bit low and we are now in the shadows, which is a blessing as it warmed up considerably on the descent. Overall the trail is about 10.5 miles, goes up 2000 feet and then down 3000 feet. The first 1.5 miles are in the trees, but beyond that every step along the way has brilliant mountain views. Definitely one of my favorite hikes, and I believe Kiersten would say the same. If only we had finished the day with a Cold Smoke Scotch Ale at Oberlin Bend. Oh wait, look what I packed in the cooler in the car, chilled to perfection ..... 😉

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08/01-02/2022 The Stupendous Birthday Present (2/3)
by LastBestPlace 18 Aug '22

18 Aug '22

/*The Stupendous Birthday Present, part 2 */The pool below Matahpi. The trail will take us completely around the mountain. /* */The ponds below Siyeh drain into this creek. Every other time I've hiked this, it was a bit tricky selecting a route across it, trying to choose rocks that allow passage without falling in. But the trail crews must have been through and put a series of large stones in place. Gorgeous clear blue sky and pleasant weather. /* */After the creek the trail goes uphill before entering the scree switchbacks. This is the view looking back where we had come from. Down below is Preston Park. On the upper right is Piegan Glacier. The pointy peak at the left is Mt. Reynolds at Logan Pass. It's impossible to capture in photos the immense peripheral view from the trail from all directions. It was near this point the stranger on the trail gave us the day's adjective of stupendous. /* */It was around this area that Kiersten pointed out the black pine cones on the trees. In all my years in the park I had never really noticed them, and on our return I asked Sandy if she had ever noticed them. Nope! They were almost exclusively just at the top of the trees. I won't let out the "secret" about what type of tree it is, but simply point out how much I appreciate seeing the park through someone else's eye. /* */One of the hazards of letting a first timer lead is that they can go the wrong way, especially if their guide is too busy babbling telling dad jokes (or even worse jokes!). And so it was that suddenly the trail went in to a snowfield right at the pass. The park information page said the pass was open, so maybe we just needed to scramble along the snow, which we did try before giving up. Perhaps we could circumvent it going up the scree on the right -- there were footprints that looked like others had gone that way. No, the rocks were way too loose. So backtrack down the trail a bit where we discovered where the switchbacks start that we had missed. I should also mention as we started up the switchbacks, it got windy. Really windy!!! We put on raincoats to act as windbreakers. /* */The switchbacks in the scree are a grind to climb up, but we make it to the top. That's me at Siyeh Pass. My phone shows 8080 feet elevation. /* */Kiersten just starting across the pass. /* */You made it!! Like middle age, it's all downhill going forward. /* */

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08/01-02/2022 The Stupendous Birthday Present (1/3)
by LastBestPlace 18 Aug '22

18 Aug '22

*/The Stupendous Birthday Present, part 1 /*We met Kiersten for the first time just over a year ago, during the first week in July of 2021. She and her friend Kayla stayed with us briefly (2 days?). Curiously, their stay is not even listed on my calendar, and we had overlapping guests for part of that visit. At the time, we also had the living room torn apart with the fireplace project, and Nadine's wedding in 3 weeks, so I have very limited recollections of their stay. As I recall, their first introduction to ever seeing Glacier National was that Sandy drove them up to Logan Pass early in the morning and they biked down the west side at sunrise, at which point Sandy drove them back up to the pass and the biked down the east side to Sun Point. All on a very clear sunny morning. This, or course, becomes a life changing event for them, /Hooked on Glacier for Life! /Kiersten's twin sister -- "Channing the Elder" (because she was born 30 minutes earlier!) -- also visited last year. Somehow or other we discovered Channing's birth date, with the incredible coincidence that her twin sister has the same birth date. And since Kiersten was working relatively nearby this summer, we invited her to come visit and we'd have a birthday party. Heck, as a birthday present I'd take her for a hike in the park. I'd like to think that a hike as a birthday present is like the American Express commercial that says "/How much would you pay for this/?" and then answer "/Priceless/". Unlike a material gift, this is a gift of cherishable memories (hopefully positive!). It ended up being a /firing on all cylinders /and /goes to eleven/ hike. Just wow! At one point on the trail we came across another hiker coming down the trail, and after a smiling greeting -- curiously almost every hiker on the trail in Glacier always has a smile! -- I remarked that I had run out of adjectives to describe the views. The stranger remarked "Stupendous", and so it was named! */ /*I did not say there were no material gifts. Sandy made a birthday cake. A lemon huckleberry cake. With a lemon curd buttercream frosting. With huckleberries on top. 3 layers tall. A sugar buzz to last a week. The bag contained a small insignificant present that I've found useful when hiking. I think just the smell of the cake elicited the smile and glazed look in the eyes 😉 */ /*The next morning we got up early to go hike. Sandy and our other guest Rick drove in as well and helped us position my car at the end of the trail. We would be hiking Siyeh Pass which is a point-to-point trail. Prior to hiking, we made a stop at Sun Point. Whitecaps on St. Mary Lake show how windy it was, but the air is crystal clear with no clouds. After a short drive up to Siyeh Bend, we are dropped off at the trailhead. The first 2.5 miles are on the Piegan Pass trail, at which point we take a right turn to Siyeh Pass. I very briefly took the lead on the trail, but insisted Kiersten lead. She doesn't need to look at my backside for 10.5 miles. The other reason is to allow her the freedom to choose the photo stops. I really enjoy hiking with people who have not been on a trail before; not only are they seeing it for the first time, but where they stop and what they look at allows me to also get some of that first time experience again, and see things I would overlook. In West Glacier we had a fantastic Beargrass season in June. That was at 3100 ft elevation and that played out many weeks ago. But now we are at 6000 feet, and while not the abundance as down below had, there was still a fair amount. The giant Beargrass. Not photo shopped, by the way! The wildflowers in Preston Park were good, but I think we were about 2 weeks early for their peak performance. Nonetheless, we attempted to create the flower child Woodstock look. In the background on the mountain is Piegan Glacier (the "experts" prediction of it's demise by 2020 appears to be unmet). Mt. Siyeh and wildflowers. I will summit it someday (the mountain, not the flowers)! The bridge that leads to Piegan Pass. We had a nice chat with a backcountry ranger here. From this point onward we follow the Siyeh Pass trail.

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pastor humor
by LastBestPlace 15 Aug '22

15 Aug '22

A pastor was 10-minutes into his sermon when he noticed his young son in the balcony with a pea-shooter. He was leaning over the "balcony"—aiming, and popping people in the head. As the pastor prepared to deliver a very public scolding of his boy – the 7 year-old son hollered out, “You keep preaching Dad, and I’ll keep’em awake!

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pirate humor
by LastBestPlace 04 Aug '22

04 Aug '22

The pirate had spent a lot of time in the sun, so he decided to go to the skin clinic and get the moles on his back checked out by a specialist. The specialist takes a close look at them and says, “it is ok. They’re benign.” The pirate replies, “Check again. I think there be eleven.”

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one stone humor
by LastBestPlace 01 Aug '22

01 Aug '22

There once was an man who had only one testicle and whose given name was 'Onestone'. He hated that name and asked everyone not to call him Onestone. After years and years of torment, Onestone finally cracked and said, 'If anyone calls me Onestone again, I will kill them!' The word got around and nobody called him that any more. Then one day a young woman named Blue Bird forgot and said, 'Good morning, Onestone.' He jumped up, grabbed her and took her deep into the forest where he made love to her all day and all night. He made love to her all the next day, until Blue Bird died from exhaustion. The word got around that Onestone meant what he promised he would do. Years went by and no one dared call him by his given name until a woman named Yellow Bird returned to the village after being away. Yellow Bird, who was Blue Bird's cousin, was overjoyed when she saw Onestone. She hugged him and said, 'Good to see you, Onestone.' Onestone grabbed her, took her deep into the forest, then he made love to her all day, made love to her all night, made love to her all the next day, made love to her all the next night, but Yellow Bird wouldn't die! Why ??? You can't kill Two Birds with OneStone !!!

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LastBestPlace August 2022