Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all watch a raccoon getting scratched..."}]

Smile 5 28 23

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Smile: Sunday, May 28, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all watch a raccoon getting scratched...

Daily Smile: Sunday, May 28, 2023

 Now let's all watch a raccoon getting scratched...

Letters to the Editor

When I was required to replace my license plate (it was in perfectly good condition) with a new one last year, I began to wonder what it cost the state to replace all plates in 2025. After asking three or four agencies in the government what that figure was, I recently got an answer. 

$5 per plate, or $1,599,980. That's a lot of change when most all plates are in good condition.  I was told this is the cost of manufacturing so, hopefully, that included design work, materials, and labor.. 

I also learned it was the law that required a change every eight years. See Motor Vehicles - 31-2-213.  It took a search of 542 pages on motor vehicle law to find this. (No wonder government is in runaway mode....no one has time to look into laws!)  

As you can see, this law costs taxpayers plenty so I asked our elected representatives the reasoning for it.  Maybe they can introduce a bill to eliminate that law. 

License plates 20240402 100307 4 6 23

<title>Letter To The Editor: License Plates Cost Too Much Money | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dear editor: When I was required to replace my license plate (it was in perfectly good condition) with a new one last year, I began to wonder what it cost the state to replace all plates in 2025.

Letter To The Editor: License Plates Cost Too Much Money

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Public Lands

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying 

 flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming around the area.

Thousands of bees are still homeless and visibly trying to survive in large groups on “bee trees” along U.S. Highway 191. 

Jim Holstein with Yellowstone Tour Guides has been passing through the area where the accident occurred. He took a photograph of one of the bee trees, where thousands of bees had completely covered a small lodgepole in a vast, buzzing swarm.

“They were still there on Monday,” Holstein told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s in the park between Big Sky and West Yellowstone. All the hives have been cleaned up, but there are quite a few bees left.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Trees"}]

Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan is familiar with bee trees. They’re an indication that a colony of bees is actively house-hunting.

“It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” he said. “The queen leaves and takes about half or more of the colony and moves to a new safe location.”

Jordan said this is common behavior for honeybees when a hive gets overpopulated. The existing queen will take nurse bees and guard bees to sustain herself in a temporary location while scouts search for a permanent 

“The scouts will search until they find a permanent location,” he said. “In the meantime, you'll have groups and colonies hanging in the trees as they regroup.”

A new permanent home could be a hole in a tree, a cave, or “anywhere that’s out of the water and elements,” said Jordan. 

Bee trees are meant to be staging locations so the scouts can lead the hive to their new home.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sugar High"}]

When the scout bees find a suitable location for a permanent hive, their next priority is

“Right now, they’re looking for a sugar source,” Jordan said. “Bees need sugar to produce wax from their glands. Once they produce the wax and form it, they'll actively engineer foam in what we call a pendulum manner to make honeycombs.”

Bees instinctively know how to build hives, and their goal is to start propagating as soon as possible after a hive-destroying incident.

Once they find a suitable spot with plenty of sugar in the vicinity, maybe a rock formation or building near a flower-filled meadow, the queen will follow the scouts to the new hive. Instinctively, all the bees on the bee tree will follow her.

Jordan didn't think there would be any bee trees for tourists to see by Wednesday.

“Those clusters will be gone within 24 to 48 hours if they find a good location,” he said. “After that, there’s nothing you can do to recover them, because tracking them is very hard.

The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Get Those Bees, Please"}]

Within 24 hours of the semitruck incident, people were at the scene removing the damaged honey boxes and trying to recover whatever remained of the bee colonies that had been residing in them.

Jordan said the first 48 hours are crucial in a bee recovery situation like that.

“If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow,” he said. “That’s what the bee trees are: thousands of bees accumulating around the queen.”

That means there’s a small window to safely save these bees before they become permanent Yellowstone residents.

Jordan’s strategy would be to place a mobile swarm trap. It’s basically a column of PVC pipes with buckets attached to either end. The height can be adjusted to get as close as possible to the colony clusters.

“If the bees accumulate in the buckets as a temporary hive, you can relocate them to an apiary and manage them there,” he said. “You can even hold a bucket up to the colony and shake them inside. That’s how you can naturally collect and remove a colony.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Bears — Yet"}]

Commercial vehicles like semitrucks are banned in Yellowstone, but U.S. Highway 191 is an exception. It hugs the western boundary of the park and is an important 55-mile thoroughfare between West Yellowstone and Big Sky, 

"They've enacted a temporary 35 mph speed limit on the section where the bees are," Holstein said. "People have to keep their windows up, and there's no stopping until crews can get the remaining bees rounded up."

When the bee trees disappear, it means the bees have found a suitable spot to rebuild their hive. Finding and removing the colony would be difficult, if not impossible, especially in the dangerous wilderness of Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"After all, who loves honey more than bears?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I haven’t seen any bears,” Holstein said. “Yet.”"}]

Jordan was more concerned about the people who lost their honey boxes and bee colonies. He knew how much money they had lost and must have spent trying to salvage whatever they could from the accident.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40-50% of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “Each honey box can cost around $500 and generate around $2,000 in honey. 

"There could be two or three owners who lost their livelihood in that accident. That’s at least one whole company that has to rebuild.”

Bee tree swarm 6 22 26

<title>Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. “It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” said a Wyoming beekeeper.

Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Waterfalls shoot straight out of volcanic cliffsides, flinging themselves into canyons almost no one ever visits. 

Far from the boardwalks and pullouts, meanwhile, something that looks very much like a starfish seems to nap where no starfish should even be, sunning itself in a crystal-clear thermal pool in Yellowstone National Park. 

It’s all part of a hidden Yellowstone that most people never get to see — the Yellowstone that Bozeman filmmaker Stephen Quayle has spent five decades chasing with a camera and has finally stitched into a new film, 

“Only 5% of Yellowstone is visible by the roads or by the boardwalks around the geysers,” Quayle told Cowboy State Daily. 

Another thin, 10% slice belongs to the hardy few willing to trek for miles into grizzly bear and wolf territory. 

But from a helicopter, “the most gorgeous” waterfalls and the most intriguing geothermal pools can be seen in stunning aerial views. 

Photographing from the air takes a million-dollar camera lens, Quayle said, one that can take high-resolution images from at least 2,000 feet away. 

That’s the minimum height recommended by the FAA for flying over places like national parks. Any lower could violate federal laws if an aircraft disturbs wildlife or park visitors.

“That way we can present to people the Yellowstone that really is,” he said. “And it’s breathtakingly wonderful. It is not just a wonder of the world, it is 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Fateful Party Weekend"}]

Quayle’s relationship with Yellowstone began when he was a college student with time on his hands and weekends to burn in glorious summer road trips. 

Yellowstone was perfect for that when you’re a young man from Bozeman, Quayle said. 

“I went there because that’s where everybody used to go and party,” he admitted. “And from Bozeman, they drive down to the inner West Yellowstone, but I would take a diversion. That doesn’t mean I didn’t partake of some of the wild stuff in those days. 

"But the bottom line is that it was so close, and in those days you could go from one feature to the next and never see another car,” Quayle added.

The more he photographed Yellowstone, the more he wanted to go back. It felt like becoming lost in another world, one that seemed to rearrange itself every time he visited.

At first, Quayle stuck to closeups. Think bacterial mats, colorful mineral formations, tiny, iridescent insects — all reflecting his interest at the time in abstract art.

“Most photographers would take a leaf,” he said. “I would take the veins in the leaf.”

But over time, Quayle saw that Yellowstone was like this gigantic living creature, breathing, pulsing, moving around. 

That could never be captured with microshots of leaf veins and abstract rock patterns. 

For the real Yellowstone, Quayle realized he had to do something to widen his scope. 

On a map, Yellowstone National Park looks vast, but knowable. 

You can drive in and easily hit the biggest, most popular features — Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic, the Canyon — and drive back out with a phone full of photos and a comfortable sense that you’ve now seen Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It’s a beautiful illusion. "}]

For one thing, Yellowstone is among the most dynamic landscapes on earth. Fire and water are shaping and reshaping its landscapes all the time. 

The park is also vast —  3,500 square miles — and the majority is too dangerous and too inaccessible for most people’s hiking abilities. 

“It’s a matter of practicality,” Quayle said. “Because some of these waterfalls come out of the side of a mountain and you’ve got wolves in the park and you’ve got grizzlies in the park … and the wolves are not, ‘oh they’re so cute,’ and it’s not Yogi Bear time.”

Some areas are even untouchable when it comes to horseback, Quayle added, and the park also has rules on where people can go by horseback, which helps protect fragile areas. 

Quayle himself didn’t even realize at first just how much he’d been missing. Until one day he got the idea to take a helicopter ride and look down on this creation. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Yellowstone became a whole new world. "}]

Geyser basins became vast, veined paintings. Rivers resolved into networks tying distant waterfalls together. Thermal scars appeared in forest clearings that had no signs, no names, no crowds.

“It’s like a whole different world,” he said. “You literally wouldn’t know you were on planet Earth.”

The view from 2,000 feet is ultimately the one that captured and held Quayle’s attention the best. 

Waterfalls spilling over volcanic rocks like crystal threads of light into dark and lonely slot canyons and broad amphitheaters that had been carved by wind and water and time. 

There were blue-and-white ribbons twisting over black volcanic rock, framed by forests and meadows that melted into the mists of morning. Scenes like this often felt less like sightseeing, and more like eavesdropping on a secret earth, as if he, himself, was an alien. 

One time he saw what looked like a perfect, starfish-like form sunning itself in a crystal clear thermal pool.

“Imagine a starfish, a perfect starfish, in water that’s too hot to have any life,” he said. “How do you get that kind of design in geothermal pools?”

Quayle said he’s shared the images with researchers, who are still evaluating them.

Quayle has combined the footage taken from the air with snapshots he’s taken at Yellowstone National Park over a 50-year period, creating a feature-length film he calls “Yellowstone: Above & Below.” 

His goal with the film is to help people access even the most inaccessible places in the park, as well as raise funds to help support the park. 

Ten percent of the film’s proceeds will be donated to the park’s official nonprofit, Yellowstone Forever, to help fund conservation, education and stewardship of the park.

“Yellowstone is alive,” the film’s narrator says over sweeping aerial shots. “Every breath of steam, every shifting terrace is part of an ancient story written in stone and fire.”

Creating the film has taken Quayle a lifetime, including about four or five years worth of helicopter rides.

“We were in a helicopter for sometimes six and eight hours a day,” he said, a ride that was paid for by the hour. “I mean, it’s a lot of time in the air, but there’s no other way to see it all, to reference it.”

To capture the views, Quayle rented a gyro-stabilized camera system with a long-range lens once used for military surveillance. He also hired Hollywood cameraman Nel Boshoff to operate it.

The camera is so precise, Quayle said, it can focus on an elk 2 miles ahead and then zoom in on its eyelashes. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where Science Meets Spirit"}]

Ask Quayle why he keeps coming back to Yellowstone after 50 years, and his answer lies somewhere between science and spirit.

From above, the branching runoff channels remind him of blood vessels in a human body, and everywhere he sees beauty born from volcanic violence.

“It’s a place of wonder and warning,” he says in the film. “It is fragile, and yet holds the strength of worlds beneath its surface.”

For most visitors, Yellowstone will always mean the 5% everyone else sees — Old Faithful, the canyon, a glimpse of bison in the valley. 

The remaining 95% — Quayle’s waterfalls in hidden canyons, starfish patterns at the bottom of a boiling pool, and backcountry geysers with no signs or names — are like something from a dream, revealed by one man’s uncommon obsession. 

If the images leave viewers feeling like they’ve gotten as close to the edge of creation as they ever will from a living-room couch, that’s fine with Quayle. That feeling is everything about Yellowstone that he’s ever wanted to say.

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

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<title>The Yellowstone You’ll Never See: Filmmaker Spends 50 Years Capturing Its Secrets | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Most tourists see just 5% of Yellowstone from roads and boardwalks. Bozeman filmmaker Stephen Quayle has spent 50 years filming the places most never reach. “It’s like a whole different world,” he said. “You literally wouldn’t know you’re on planet Earth.”

The Yellowstone You’ll Never See: Filmmaker Spends 50 Years Capturing Its Secrets

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

A Casper man says he's being forced to part ways with his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig at his wife's behest, blaming the vehicle's irresistible appeal to the opposite sex.

"I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less," Austin Griess wrote in a tongue-in-cheek Facebook post advertising his lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon for sale. "My wife is making me sell my lifted AMC Eagle because of all the attention it brings. 

"I only have eyes for her, yet this car seems to draw in way too many female lookers for my comfort."

Austin Griess found the 1984 AMC Eagle 4X4 Wagon on Facebook Marketplace during the dead of winter.

During the cold months he worked on it, installing a lift kit, tuning it up and making it reliable enough to serve as a daily driver. Then he said he turned it into a true “chick magnet” by added a modern stereo.

The goal was to debut the finished wagon with 150,000 original miles on it at a Memorial Day car show.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We didn't make it in time for entry,\" Griess said."}]

"The payment is due here in June," he joked. "No trophy making a payment."

After months of wrenching and modifying the Oldsmobile, he said that his wife has had enough of competing with the AMC for attention.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The wife just kind of had enough of me at that point,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So, the Eagle is now looking for its next owner."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding Bigfoot"}]

Along with making whoever drives it irresistible, "This would be a perfect Bigfoot hunting rig,” said Griess, adding that his day job is in sales.

[{"type":"text","text":"The four-door Eagle is rugged, practical, and weird. "}]

"That's the ideal car to take your wife and two kids and throw all your crap in the back, go to the mountains for a picnic, and go fishing" says mechanical philosopher Ron Gordon. 

The Eagle is powered by a 4.2-liter inline-six engine shared with old Jeeps.

The original muffler is still hanging on, although Griess admits it's become a little rough around the edges.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little bit raspy,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Perfect For Wyoming"}]

Long before crossovers filled dealership lots, vehicles like the AMC Eagle were doing much of the same work.

Ron Gordon owned an auto shop in Big Piney for 15 years and has spent nearly 70 years around cars. When shown photos of Griess’ golden Eagle, his first reaction was blunt.

"One of the Lee brothers made it: Ug Lee or Home Lee," Gordon said with a laugh.

[{"type":"text","text":"But beneath the humor was genuine admiration."}]

"It was a pretty unique car in its day," he said. "It was the first real sport utility vehicle on the market."

[{"type":"text","text":"The Eagle debuted years before today's crossover craze."}]

It combined station wagon practicality with four-wheel-drive capability, making it particularly appealing in places where winter weather and rough roads were facts of life.

"It'd be good for anything from going fishing or to sheep ranch," Gordon said.

That versatility made vehicles like the Eagle a natural fit in the Cowboy State. 

Griess agrees, calling it "the perfect Wyoming car — great for snow, inclement weather and getting off the paved roads."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Before SUVs"}]

To understand why people get nostalgic about station wagons, Gordon said you have to remember what Wyoming life looked like decades ago.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then, a trip to town wasn't a quick errand."}]

"It was 60 miles to go buy groceries," Gordon recalled. "When you got in the car to go someplace, it was an event."

Station wagons weren't fashion statements, he added, "They were tools. They hauled groceries, hauled kids, and camping gear." 

Gordon remembers one summer when his family traveled to Idaho, where his father was working in the mountains.

The family camped, and he and his brothers slept in the back of a station wagon.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"There was a bear come in one night,\" Gordon said."}]

The animal poked holes in juice cans before dogs chased it away and up a tree. Looking back, Gordon laughs at the memory.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I guess the station wagon was a safe haven for me,” he said."}]

For families throughout the West, station wagons were simply part of life before minivans hit the scene.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Everybody that had a big family had a station wagon,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Time Machine "}]

Griess was born in 1988, but said he grew up surrounded by remnants of the decade. 

His parents were older. His uncles still wore the giant mustaches that survived long after the 1980s were over. 

"Life was simpler back then," says Griess. "If you wanted to do something, you just did it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"The AMC Eagle was meant to embody that mindset. "}]

"It just screams going out and camping with just the necessities," he said.

Music helps complete the vision. The Eagle has speakers — of course. Its soundtrack, according to Griess, has plenty of Molly Hatchet, Ted Nugent, and old-school rock.

It’s the kind of music that sounds best with the windows down and a dirt road ahead.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Let The Eagle Fly'"}]

Selling a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle won't be easy. Building it was part of the fun, said Griess, and bringing it to life was the reward. 

"It's hard to part with,” he added. "But when you have limited space, you've got to let go sometimes. Let the Eagle fly free."

Its next owner will get a lifted station wagon, a conversation starter, a piece of nostalgia, and a camper.

Or, as Gordon puts it, they'll get exactly what station wagons were always meant to be, "a helluva good car." 

AMC Eagle IMG 5493 6 20 26

<title>Casper Man Selling His 1984 AMC Eagle 'Chick Magnet' Because Wife Wants It Gone | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig — a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles he says attracts too much female attention. "I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less,” he said.

Casper Man Selling His 1984 AMC Eagle 'Chick Magnet' Because Wife Wants It Gone

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Law Enforcement

Crime & Courts

Sound surveillance technology has gone largely unnoticed and un-debated in Wyoming while residents clash over video-surveillance license plate reader cameras, like Flock.

ome Wyoming law enforcement agencies use microphone surveillance systems in Cheyenne to detect gunshots, authorities have confirmed.

Gunshot detection sensors are acoustic detection systems built to alert authorities to gunfire and help them locate it. 

ShotSpotter, a prevalent system brand, relies on an artificial intelligence algorithm and network of microphones to identify gunshots.

Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak said his office uses that tech in just one place: the local courthouse.

The Cheyenne Police Department has used shot detection technology and “the microphones can be deployed on our mobile observation platforms at large community events, or in hot spots for crime,” said agency spokeswoman Alexandra Farkas in a Friday text message.

The surveillance video cameras have been far more controversial so far, as Wyoming law enforcement agencies use license plate cameras in at least 

In the audio surveillance world, the prominent brand Flock is now transitioning to train its high-powered microphones to listen for ambiguous sounds like screaming and human distress rather than just gunshots, according to 

[{"type":"text","text":"State of Surveillance calls that expansion “mission creep.”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak said he hadn’t heard of microphones doing that yet."}]

Kozak in his Friday phone interview said that when he was chief of police for Cheyenne, the agency used the microphones at the huge Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo to locate any gunfire on site quickly.

As for Kozak’s newer role as sheriff, the courthouse is the only place he uses the sound technology, he said.

“(If there are) any shots within the building, it alerts deputies what part of the building,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Vroom"}]

While Wyoming debates surveillance cameras, what's gone largely unsung and un-debated is sound sensor technology. Law enforcement authorities in Cheyenne say they are using noise sensors to detect gunshot sounds. Some worry it could lead to "mission creep.”

Daily Smile: Sunday, May 28, 2023

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