Driving through highway construction zones between Helena and Great Falls I snapped before and after photos of a section of I-15 in Mid Canyon blasted on Monday August 23rd.

The ‘before’ image shows a demolition truck perched above I-15 just past exit 244 and the ‘after’ shows the northbound lanes filled with boulders Tuesday morning.

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WKP’s Montana 2010 Photograph Gallery.

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Just look at the dark cloud of Caddisflies over this Pine tree. Perhaps my favorite photograph this week on the beautiful Missouri River in Central Montana (South of Great Falls and North of Helena)

Read more about Trichoptera at Wikipedia.

On the Missouri River from Craig to Cascade, Montana.

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The iPhone is a wobbly device without a dedicated shutter release button. Pushing the touchscreen ‘capture’ button counters the balance of the device in your hand causing the camera to move at capture and most pics are blurred. Check this site and you’ll see I can hold a camera still and capture beautiful images, even with a 2MP camera phone.

Here are a few images from my travel to Reno, taken with my iPhone 3GS.

Delta Airlines messed up the flights so badly that I spent the first night in Los Angeles and barely got to Reno the next day on a standby flight. Ironic that Walmart can ship me something at 8pm from Texas and it gets to my house 10am the next day but Delta can’t deliver a human in two days.

Wait, lets look at that statement again!

I paid $600 for a ride to Reno, Nevada and got there 22 hours later, spending a night at an L.A. Westin.

I paid $30 for next day shipping (approx. same travel distance) and the parcel arrived 12 hours later. Watching the tracking info showed this parcel never stopped due to airline issues.

Reno is a seething pit of malaise. In the highest rent district buildings were abandoned and dilapidated. A view from our hotel room showed telltale signs an abandoned hotel across the street is “Hotel Squatter”.

At night, the consensus among guest in our hotel was, stay inside. Unafraid of common and uncommon criminals; my experience outside our hotel ‘compound’ was depressingly ugly.

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I didn’t do as well today blowing my previous +2 on the front nine away with +7 today but I followed it up with mostly par through the back 9, resulting in a total of +8 not bad for my 7th game ever. (btw: my buddy and I had been shooting +19 or so in Cranbury)

There were quite a few people playing the course today, Mother’s Day 2009. I played through with a nice guy from Greenville before joining two locals for the last 11 holes. I didn’t hold them up too much and definitely enjoyed the camaraderie.

There are several really positive things I can say about this sport so far;
•    The people along any given course are really cool.
•    If you miss a drive, you still have a good chance at par.
•    Tee to basket is likely to be a rugged walk in the woods.
•    Each course seems to have a 420′ hole.
•    Throwing a disc perfectly through a bunch of trees is awesome.
•    No matter what, it’s all about being outside and having fun.

I enjoyed playing the Richmond Hill Disc Golf course while visiting Asheville. I met some nice people along the way. The course is challenging… or from my perspective, thrilling. I guess the only thing missing was something the four of us talked about while waiting for a party of 8 to clear the line: A disc golf concession stand staffed by hotties in bikinis.

Though a garbage can or two along the way would be helpful, I should note that this Asheville course was 99.9% litter free which contrasts dramatically with the disgusting state of Cranbury Park Disc Golf Course in Norwalk, CT.

Thanks for such a nice course and kind reception this visitor got while visiting North Carolina.

Look at this totally monumental shot, very much stuck in a tree. Disc Golf Art.

Well, just a visitor to this self-claimed “most challenging and exciting course in the country” I played the front nine today. This my 6th game ever, I birdied hole 9 ending the front nine with +2…. and that only due to a miss at five feet from the basket on hole 4 and a tall tree on 5.

Here are some pics of the course which I’ll play again over the next week while in Asheville, North Carolina.

BTW: I thought about it before leaving and didn’t bring any discs. I found a store called DiamondBrand in Arden that sells Discraft and picked up a Comet, which I have never thrown before but read good things about. I’m hooked.

Got my hair cut for a cure this past Sunday marking the beginning of my warm season fundraising for cancer research and awareness. This was a St. Baldrick’s TeamBrent fundraiser for Children’s Cancer.

Collecting donations from sponsors willing to contribute to Cancer research if I were willing to shave my head was easy. I made it down to Bear & Grill in Fairfield, CT. midday Sunday, signed a liability waiver, dropped an envelope in the donations box and got in line.

I lucked out with a most beautiful volunteer barber who wisked off 6 months of hair in 2 minutes flat. I’m a handsome man! Check out the video.

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In the past two years I have used 5 tour companies to visit many different countries from Asia to Eastern Europe and have never experienced such uncoordinated failure.

From my initial contact with enjoyperu.com it took nearly 6 weeks to communicate and book a simple 5 day tour of Peru, including a visit to Machu Picchu.

I will elaborate on my experience with this tour agency which unlike others in my experience does nothing more than attempt to coordinate your vacation. They provided us with a liaison who neglected to inform us of critical information each day before leaving us with a guide who may or may not have been professional and well educated.

Tickets were missing, timing was stressful and opportunities for necessities such as food, bodily functions and sleep weren’t provided.

When I return to a keyboard I will edit this. I just want to impart this info as soon as possible to spare anyone from enduring the circumstances of the past week, much of which could have been avoided if our enjoyperu liason learned to communicate in English.. or even at all.. Because most of our discouraging experience could have been avoided with a few crucial bits of info. Such as… You will not have an opportunity to eat for 24 hours or bring the ticket you used last week to get in to that other place, bring money, credit cards and …. Exasperated and still in Peru..