Captain Geoff gives airboat tours of Mobile Bay, leaving from the Original Oyster House on the causeway that goes east out of town, past the retired USS Alabama. On the tours, airboaters often see alligators, birds, leaping fish and the natural beauty of the marshy flats. That is, if you can track down the mysterious captain.
Traveling the American Road – Airboating in Mobile
Most arrangements on this road trip have so far been made by smartphone, cross-referencing websites and Twitter profiles, mapping locations, making calls and sending text messages. But no matter how many times I called Geoff’s listed number, I couldn’t get through to him. In search of more information, I walked over to the local tourism office.
Two Southern gentlemen staffed the desk, and no sooner had I said “Airboat tour” than they gave a knowing “Ahhhhh.” Tourists frequently have trouble tracking down the skipper, they said, who spends a good bit of time hanging out at the Bluegill, a bar and restaurant near the Oyster House. (Promising news, I thought, a captain who carouses at local dives!) The consensus between the two: Geoff probably wasn’t answering his phone because he didn’t feel like giving tours.
Undeterred, I hopped in the car and drove out to the Oyster House. I asked the host, who hadn’t seen Geoff lately. Same with the bartender. Just before I got to Bluegill, my phone rang: It was Brittney, who works with Geoff and would like to know when I’d like to go on an airboat tour? Tomorrow, please!
In the morning, it was back to the dock, where, to my great disappointment, there were half a dozen other airboat tourists ready to go. “Are you Captain Geoff?” I asked the man in charge, wearing boots and a Boonie hat pinned up at the sides. It was, and he pointed me to my boat as I wondered how these other people made their reservations. Why didn’t I bump into them on the hunt for captain Geoff? Did they spend the previous day in Mobile on a quest that would end, anticlimactically, exactly the way it was meant to?
I didn’t have a chance to ask: The airboat ride was way too much fun.
National Geographicannounced yesterday that it is getting into the clothing business. The famous organization says that it will produce a new line of “explorer inspired” apparel that will hit store shelves across North America later this year.
Nat Geo has partnered with apparel manufacturer Greater Clothing Company to bring two styles of clothing to market. The “Rugged Series” is designed for the urban adventurer who is looking for comfortable clothes to wear while exploring the town, while the “Storm Series,” which includes jackets and rain coats, will keep them warm and dry when the weather takes a turn for the worse.
The clothing promises to blend old school, expedition design elements with modern fashions and fabrics. The gear will be breathable and water resistant, and built for comfort while on the go. That combination should make the garments popular with travelers who expect comfort and good looks out of the gear they take with them on the road.
Exactly how much the new gear will cost, and where it will be available, has not yet been revealed. The clothing is expected to be in stores in October however, with plans to expand the offerings in early 2012, when a more technical line of gear, as well as active wear, will be added to the catalog.
How many miscreants does it take to coin a new word? Apparently, many. Dig, if you will, the picture: Gamblers, saloon keepers, thieves, pickpockets, conmen, murderers, pimps and prostitutes, shyster politicians and lawyers. These were the people who made up the Barbary Coast in San Francisco, people who didn’t mine for gold, but who set up shop to strip the newly rich or the desperate-to-be-rich of their money. And because many of the people who rushed into California for gold were not used to having money, it was easy to get them to part with it.
Which is how the Barbary Coast gave birth to another word: hoodlum. Scholars have said the word comes an old German word “huddellump” which means “ruffian.” Others say it evolved from the dictum “huddle ’em,” a call for gangs to attack Chinese immigrants. It could have even been the name of a particular gang, as the local newspaper “Golden Era” reported on February 16, 1868: “The police have recently been investigating the proceedings of a gang of thieving boys who denominate themselves and are known to the world as the Hoodlum Gang.”
In fact, the word was always used as a proper noun (that is, with a capital H), thus referring to a gang of young thugs and brawlers. The first time it appeared with a lower case h, though, was in a Sacramento newspaper. Five years after that, “hoodlum” was in use all over the United States.
Although the U.S. population continues to diversify, that trend has not been reflected in the demographics for visitors to U.S. parks. MSNBC reports that on Wednesday, the National Park Service (NPS) released a survey that shows that 78 percent of visitors to America’s national parks between 2008 and 2009 where white non-Hispanic, while Hispanics accounted for nine percent and African-Americans only seven percent. In comparison, the most recent U.S. census revealed that only 64 percent of the population was non-Hispanic white.
Why are people of color staying away from U.S. parks? Rob Lovitt, author of the MSNBC article, suggests fear of the unknown as well as the assumption that the parks are only for adventurous outings, such as hiking and camping. Helping minorities feel welcome once they are in the parks has also been a concern of the NPS.
Trying to make “America’s Best Idea” a concept that all Americans can embrace is the only way that parks will continue to be part of the American experience. Shelton Johnson, an African-American park ranger that was interviewed for the MSNBC story, points out that some of the first men to serve as rangers in America’s parks were the so-called “Buffalo Soldiers,” members of the African-American regiments of the U.S. Army from 1899-1904.
“This puts African-Americans at the very beginning of national park history, yet African-Americans only constitute 1 percent of visitors to the park,” said Johnson. “If you don’t know you have cultural roots in the parks, then you’re not going to feel a sense of ownership in them.”
One way that the NPS is hoping that minorities feel ownership in the parks is by developing programs that introduce minority kids to the wonders of the national parks. Current programs include Wildlink, which introduces inner-city youth from Oakland and Stockton to the parks through five-day wilderness trips to Yosemite, and the Camp Moreno Project, which gives Colorado kids the opportunity to go camping in Rocky Mountain National Park. The hope is that the more visitors the parks can attract the more park supporters there will be, thus ensuring that all 394 national parks will be around for all Americans to enjoy.
Cattle drives call to mind old western films, full of six-shooters and women in hoop skirts who faint delicately at the sight of blood. Most of all, they conjure images of cowboys – complete with hats, belt buckles and worn-in, dusty boots and spurs.
Once a main method of transporting herds to stockyards and markets, cattle drives had their heyday between 1865 and 1895, when more than 10 million cattle were herded between Texas and Kansas for delivery to Chicago and other major cities.
Despite the advent of motorized transportation, ranchers today still use the same basic principles to round up, herd and sort cattle as their cowboy predecessors did more than 100 years ago.
While visiting The Resort at Paws Up, I had the chance to participate in a drive, learning the basics of herding and driving cattle from Mike Doud (pictured at right), a rancher and true cowboy with more than three decades of experience. Before joining the Paws Up team, Mike owned his own ranch and regularly spent days or weeks in the saddle, herding his teams of cattle across thousands of acres.
Mike and his cowboy cohort Max, along with their two dogs, regularly lead guests on sample drives to showcase one of the West’s most iconic activities. While a real “drive” might begin at 3 or 3:30 AM in deference to the extreme summer heat, we began at the more leisurely hour of 9, first learning the basic principles of riding and what to expect from our horses and the cows we’d find. Our crew of six, plus Mike, included two experienced riders and four “newbies,” all of whom were eager to learn the ropes.
%Gallery-129848%Like most western-style riding, the horses were highly-trained and responded to neck reining cues – leaving a cowboy’s other hand free to move as necessary. We learned the basic principals of moving cattle – driving them from behind. Cows are pack animals and see both the horses and dogs as dominant, so they take a prey stance and move away from pressure from behind. The goal? To get our cows to “string out” and be “pulled” of their own momentum – when riding from behind in a fan or U-shape, we would (in theory) be able to get the herd to follow a pack mentality, simply exerting pressure on one side or another by turning our horses to form a barrier.
Movies often show cowboys galloping hell-bent for leather across open fields, cattle strung behind and in front of them, racing as if their lives depended on it. In reality, Mike explained, a cattle drive is a slow, leisurely process, most often experienced at a walk or “long trot.” The idea is to move the cattle at their natural pace so as not to “take pounds off,” as steers and beef cattle were priced by weight. Running the cattle would result in thinner, less profitable sales.
Drives could take place for a variety of reasons – to move cows to market, rounding them to separate a neighbor’s cows from your own, branding or vetting, or moving cattle from one pasture to another. Cattle typically graze across many acres of land, and while these animals often stick to groups, they don’t remain in tight pack. Ranches may range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of acres, with a variety of terrain surroundings, including brush, trees, and large hills.
Most cowboys employ highly-trained dogs to assist in herding. These nimble, agile creatures are voice-command trained and can dodge in and out of herds with ease, nipping flanks and ankles as necessary to get the cattle to move at a certain speed or in a certain direction.
Mike’s dog, Sis, was the eighth in a long line, he explained. We quickly learned that we were superfluous – Mike, his horse, and Sis could easily have handled the 35 or so head of cattle we were tasked with rounding, driving to a pen a few miles away, sorting, and putting the cattle back in their home pasture.
The eight-year-old dog was the star of the show, responding to commands that showed a human-like level of understanding to “get one,” “get two” or “get ’em all,” to “slow,” “round up,” or “go sit on that rock.” If Sis had opposable thumbs, I don’t doubt she could have done my job as a writer. (We learned later that Mike and Sis could have handled this job with three times as many cattle by themselves… we were merely observers.)
The horses aided in the drive as well, often getting right up behind recalcitrant steers and “encouraging” movement with a little nip on the rear.
When we eventually got the cattle to a pen (two hour later) we learned the art of cutting in and sorting out specific steer or heifer, using the same basic principals employed while driving en masse.
Four hours later, we dismounted, sweaty and saddle sore, but victorious. We’d moved cattle. Like any true cowboy, Mike tipped his hat and shook hands before walking off to care for his horses, leaving us with a newfound respect for the adventures of the (semi-wild) West.
And of course, for your viewing pleasure – don’t miss one of our favorite cowboy songs below:
This writer’s visit was sponsored by The Resort at Paws Up, but her opinions are solely her own.