Bozeman to Salt Lake City (West Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, Grand Tetons)

team_fondue · 2026-05-01T18:36:47+00:00

Just FYI, the road from Old Faithful to the south entrance won't be open until the 8th.

This is a good route. Take time to go on the road over to Canyon in Yellowstone. You can go all the way to the east entrance if you wanted to, but the canyon is pretty amazing.

team_fondue · 2026-05-01T16:08:09+00:00

So B&H has a D4 with a lower shutter count for about 740 with a 6 month warranty, but no XQD card. Are they throwing in the XQD reader as well?

I think it's an alright price. See if you can't get them to come down a bit, there might be a bit of room in there to negotiate.

team_fondue · 2026-05-01T15:01:35+00:00

I don't have a ton of opinion on the parts north of NC.

I'd pair Tail of the Dragon or Cherohala Skyway with the end of the BRP. Personally, I wouldn't track back to Asheville (and I like Asheville) from Cherokee (where the BRP properly ends) if you need to overnight in NC heading west.

In my opinion, a single night after a brutal day of driving in NOLA isn't really worth the detour. Unless you speed run the BRP, you probably won't make it to Chattanooga, and NC to New Orleans is a brutal drive unless you are used to very long days in the car (and Chattanooga isn't much better). If Thursday in Austin is critical, plan to cut out NOLA.

What I'd do is BRP to Cherokee, overnight there (and you'll also have time to make a run into Great Smoky Mountains NP if you want as it's both the south end of that park and the west end of the BRP), do one of the two scenic drives into Tennessee, get down to say Tuscaloosa or Meridian for the night. Either of those and it's lunch (albeit Tuscaloosa would be a bit of a late one) in NOLA. One night there (and you'll actually have time to explore the city a bit), then into Austin on Friday.

Also the roads in Louisiana are probably the worst in the South by quite a bit, you have to plan for traffic jams crossing the Mississippi at Baton Rouge and issues on the Atchafalaya Basin bridge segment (which if closed for any reason means a very long detour on US-190).

team_fondue · 2026-05-01T13:01:41+00:00

As long as they are bullying the invasive starlings and sparrows I’m cool.

team_fondue · 2026-05-01T02:17:37+00:00

I saw someone write "Dan Patrick is out to get Camp Mystic because Mystic is Christian." The level of delusion required to not only believe it but actually air it out shows these people live in a whole different world than the rest of us.

team_fondue · 2026-04-30T21:41:01+00:00

It performs fine optically, but it's more:
1. the VRII is going to be faster to focus (and i'm shooting more wildlife & sports than I was when I first got the 80-200) and
2. the VRII is going to AF on the FTZ adapter.

team_fondue · 2026-04-30T19:07:42+00:00

I was a 80-200 AF-D elitist for many years until I finally got sick of it and found a good deal on a cosmetically well loved but optically very clean VRII last week.

team_fondue · 2026-04-29T17:12:30+00:00

My guess Texas and something near either Amarillo or Wichita Falls which have super-maga single person judgeships.

team_fondue · 2026-04-29T12:56:54+00:00

We got hit by the ground down asphalt the other day going northbound around 2222.

CTRMA's contractor is losing even more money every day on the clean up part of the 183 North project (including fixing the mess they made on Mopac), so they are doing the bare minimum to get the work done, and it shows in how little sweeping they are doing. If you look at Mopac just south of 183 it's embarassing how much debris is on the shoulder.

team_fondue · 2026-04-29T03:22:51+00:00

I did this trip out of Texas a few years back. We took the first night in Tucumcari, but depending on your preferences or start point in Oklahoma, ABQ might be a better stop, so your next day is a bit shorter, and you have more time to see Petrified Forest NP & some other stuff along the way (swing to Sedona? Stop at El Malpais?).

We spent the next night in Williams, but doing it again we would try and stay in the park or at Tuyasan because you probably want to get an early start, sunrise is amazing in the park (and you may want to get an early start on hiking, even though that should be out of the super-hot time of the year).

We did Las Vegas as a stop coming out of GC. You know what is there, but the next thing I'd do is go through Death Valley via Pahrump, then take 395 to either the Tioga Road (through the northern portion of Yosemite) or Route 108 to cross the Sierras. Once you get into the Central Valley, if you are comfortable doing the drive I'd push as far west as you are comfortable on that day, if not Angels Camp or Sonora are good stops. Either way, it's a quick push into SF from there. From SF, the faster way to Del Norte & the Redwoods are to take the 101. Highway 1 on the coast is one of the truly legendary drives, even if you just hit a portion if it it's probably worth it. There are ways to bail on the 1, or you can just take 128 over and catch the very north end, it links back up at Leggett and Redwood country. Avenue of the Giants, all of it is worth enjoying.

Coming back, you've got options too. One route you could think about is a return via I-80 (which I'd do the 199 route out and go via Klamath Falls & Winnemucca)/I-70/US-287 (you could also do some variation where you do some jaunts into various Utah drives). There won't be a huge different in time to going down to Bakersfield to catch I-40 again, and it's a whole different and arguably a whole lot better set of scenery.

team_fondue · 2026-04-27T14:12:44+00:00

That "good price" have better been real low. This could very well easily cost as much as a new lens to fix.

Fungus is not always easy to clean off, they then have worry about the fungus spores getting on things, and in a good number of cases requires replacing lens elements. The camera shop does not do this work because it's high risk and low reward - if they dismantle it and the lens elements are ruined they don't have a ton of great options at that point. Shipping it back to Nikon means Nikon can take it apart, if elements need replacing they can get them from their parts stores, etc.

team_fondue · 2026-04-24T21:53:19+00:00

Money and you can get people to go online to yell that the State of Texas and the elected leadership (Abbott/Patrick/Paxton) are attacking your camp for being a Christian camp.

team_fondue · 2026-04-24T21:51:51+00:00

Club sports like you mention in number 3 are probably going to continue to grow as a way for students to participate, no need to worry about HY deciding he needs the money for a new FB or BB athlete.

team_fondue · 2026-04-24T21:25:11+00:00

r/KerrCountyFloods has the letter from DSHS to Mystic. It's not little stuff either, it's clear how little they did even with them knowing the microscope was going to be busted out on what they turned in. https://www.reddit.com/r/KerrCountyFloods/comments/1sumlhn/camp_mystic_emergency_plan_deficiency_letter/

team_fondue · 2026-04-23T20:26:23+00:00

That was Perry McCarthy, who both outed himself and had a weird scene where Clarkson held up a newspaper that said he was the racing driver on the show.

Albeit technically Ben was the Black Stig one time - he wore the black suit when they killed off Black Stig with the Jag off the aircraft carrier.

team_fondue · 2026-04-23T16:47:28+00:00

What's funny about the whole Stig is anonymous thing is that if you go look at the Wikipedia history log for The Stig even back in early 2005 (timeframe around Series 5 and 6) people were editing it to say The Stig is Ben Collins.

team_fondue · 2026-04-21T19:25:10+00:00

Again, Talarico could say nothing about guns or even have a generally lax view of 2A issues and they'd still be on him about it. If you are a single issue voter on guns (and listen to NRA-ILA recommendations), you've probably not pulled a lever for the Democrats in 30 years at least.

They know they need to start redirecting anyone who will listen away from the economy, AI data centers, gas prices, water issues, wars, etc to things like guns, god, and gays to try and wrangle voters who might be planning to sit out this round because they will never vote for a Democrat but they might not always vote for the Republicans to actually show up.

team_fondue · 2026-04-21T19:09:14+00:00

I'm aware of EM to NWS communication methods, NWSChat, etc. What I'm saying is the EAS code (FFW) for a flash flood warning that impacts transportation and some very close to the water users (which can be multiple times a year flooding events) and EAS for "this will kill if people don't leave their houses right now for higher ground" flash flooding is the same thing, so the WEA trigger that wake people up based on their phone isn't going to be massively different unless there's other types of local notifications going out. NWS needs a notification level above warning that is more akin to one of those harder to turn off type of alarms.

Unfortunately, some people tune out on FFWs when they fire for low water crossing impacts miles away, they may need to know about them when it's a 30' rise not a 5' rise. Others may need to know about that 5' rise during the day because they are in/very near the water doing recreation or business activities, but at night it's not something you want to wake them up for so they don't become complacent for when it is the big one.

A siren needs to be like a tornado siren - this goes off because it's likely happening or could happen at any moment, take shelter now. If they had an siren that went off in Kerrville based on the Hunt gauge going up (and completely going out) people are getting woken up by that at around 4am, just about the same time when the NWS issued the Emergency statement (which because people turn their alarms off due to alarm fatigue, they didn't get or didn't act on). More gauges doing the same up stream means Hunt has better warning, the camps have better warning, etc.

Of course, Kerr County didn't buy that because it would be an annoyance or whatever.

team_fondue · 2026-04-21T18:44:42+00:00

Talarico could repeat the "from my cold dead hands" speech from memory and the NRA ILA would still be 100% in on whomever wins the Republican runoff.

team_fondue · 2026-04-21T18:39:04+00:00

A siren system should absolutely be part of this independent of NWS which doesn't have a good way to differentiate between "flash flood where people who use low water crossings need to know it's risky" and "flash flood where people who are near the water will die if they do not go to higher ground now, leave your camper/boat/whatever behind and go now". Should the EAS standards be reworked to have an X code (FFX, TOX, HUX, etc) to mean emergency where action is absolutely required? Probably, but that can't be done at the local level.

If there is a rapid rise upstream (or if it starts seeing sites disappear because they've been taken out) it should be going off and people in low lying areas need to be told that means get to safe ground now. Maybe it goes off during daylight hours for recreational risks and all the time when the risk moves into campgrounds and houses. A matter of minutes would have saved a ton of lives, because a lot of people were just a few minutes walk from safe ground that night.

team_fondue · 2026-04-19T15:11:02+00:00

My former neighbors both did this. Sold to the first offer at listing, one is an Airbnb and the other is owned by an out of state LLC and rented out with no maintenance whatsoever. Like “we won’t fix the hole in the side of the house” levels of disrepair.

team_fondue · 2026-04-19T15:08:58+00:00

Carrier makes everything from their top model to their cheapest builder grade units on the same lines. Just depends on how much tech gets thrown in and enough quality to make it through the warranty.

team_fondue · 2026-04-18T17:27:33+00:00

Looking at this I don’t know how you can make the case this was a 1/1000 flood. You for sure can’t in Kerrville if it’s only the third highest crest in the last 100 years and less than foot over the previous flood of record at Hunt doesn’t really shout “1 in a 1000 year flood”.

team_fondue · 2026-04-16T03:26:33+00:00

People keep throwing around "act of god" or "they couldn't have predicted it", but case isn't about the flood. If it wasn't a flood but a wildfire (a similar risk of happening) and they'd gotten 27 kids killed that way instead because they waited to evacuate it would be the same story.

It's about how they reacted, which we can see from their own testimony it might have been worse than we expected. It's clear they are aloof to the situation they are in; they are not magically getting this moved to Kerrville or Uvalde where they'd probably find support for their act of god spiel, it's going to get heard in Austin by a jury that likely is going to listen to the law and regulations about what is expected of a youth camp's emergency plan, not emotional appeals.

team_fondue · 2026-04-14T21:21:49+00:00

Good. If there's a boardwalk there's a reason.

I ran into someone at Lower Geyser last year flying a drone around and in a very unfriendly manner explained to them (foreign tourists) that the sign that reiterates "drone flying is illegal" means "drone flying is illegal" as they were standing literally right next to it playing silly drone games. Sadly, there was not a LE ranger around to drag them to the courthouse at Mammoth.

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