Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Do not mess with the cat train..."}]

Smile 12 27 23

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

<title>Daily Smile: Wednesday, December 27, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Do not mess with the cat train...

Daily Smile: Wednesday, December 27, 2023

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

Andrew Rossi

Tourism

[{"type":"text","text":"Some places just aren't a good fit for RVs and motorhomes. "}]

The Needles Highway in South Dakota’s Custer State Park, near Mount Rushmore, is one of them.

Denise Yelton and Todd Beaver discovered that during an excursion in Custer recently when a motorhome intended to thread the Needles Eye Tunnel found itself fraying halfway through.

Yelton and Beaver, who have been “full-time RVers” since April, decided to take an early-morning drive on the Needles Highway on Friday. They departed in their Jeep Gladiator, leaving their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica parked at the campground.

“We left early because we knew the highway would get really crowded with Sturgis,” Yelton told Cowboy State Daily. “When we got to the tunnel, we pulled over because I wanted to record a video of my husband coming through the tunnel.”

When they pulled off the road, the Freedom Elite motorhome behind them kept going. That’s when disaster struck.

“I was sitting there waiting to see if he was going to make it through, and he got stuck,” Denise said. “I recorded it, obviously.”

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

Drivers pass through three tunnels on the Needles Highway. The Needles Eye is the tightest at 8 feet, 4 inches wide and 9 feet, 8 inches tall.

Many people have attempted to get their RVs, motorhomes, and travel trailers through these tunnels, and many have failed. 

Yelton had seen videos of similar incidents and wasn’t keen to emulate them.

Yelton thought the Freedom Elite might have had a chance. Unfortunately for the couple pulling it, they were over-accessorized.

“The awning started scraping against the side of the tunnel,” she said. “When he realized that he wasn't going to make it, he started backing up, and that's when it was making all the noise.”

When the RV backed up far enough, the awning arm fully extended until it fell off. The driver backed out of the tunnel and parked in the pull-off to assess the damage with his wife.

Yelton and Beaver hopped in their Jeep and continued onward. Yelton assumed they conceded they couldn’t thread the Needles Eye and went back the way they came.

“I think he just thought he could get through, and maybe if it wasn't for the awnings, he possibly could have,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Don’t Be This Guy'"}]

Before Yelton posted the video of the RV incident on her 

, it had 347 followers. Three days later, it has more than 9,000 followers.

“It has blown my mind,” she said. “I’m not out there trying to get followers and stuff, but it's really blown my mind.”

When Beaver retired from the Charlotte Fire Department last year, the couple left Gastonia, North Carolina, in April and haven’t stopped since.

“We’re sharing our adventures and life on the road, one mile at a time,” Yelton said.

Yelton noticed that the Freedom Elite that attempted to scrape through the tunnel also had a North Carolina license plate. However, she figured that wasn’t a good time to chitchat.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I didn’t speak to them at all,” she said. “We just went on.”"}]

She did point out the numerous signs along the road warning drivers of the width and height of the upcoming tunnel. It seems the driver either underestimated the Freedom Elite’s width or overestimated his ability to get through the tunnel.

“He had to make it through the previous tunnel to get where he was, and that one was wider,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"There’s An App For That"}]

How can RV and motorhome drivers avoid these incidents? There’s an app for that.

As she was researching full-time RV life, Yelton learned the secret to safe travels is the RV Life app.

“We put our destination in the app, and it’ll tell us what we want to avoid,” she said. “That’s what you have to do as an RVer, and we knew that because we follow a lot of them.”

That’s why their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica RV stayed where it was. That’s for living and traveling the open road, not exploring routes like the Needles Highway.

“We never would have intentions of taking our camper on a mountain road,” she said. “We've researched enough about the areas that we're headed to so we know what to do when we get there.”

Yelton and Beaver have been savoring South Dakota for several days. The next leg of their trip will take them on Interstate 90 to Buffalo, then over the Bighorns to Cody on their way to Yellowstone National Park.

Thanks to RV Life, they know where they can and can’t go with their RV, lest they end up facing scrutiny on social media.

“We’ve seen a lot of videos, so we knew our RV would never make it through those tunnels,” Yelton said. “That was my first time seeing something like that.”

RV stuck 8 17 26

<title>RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A couple was videotaping the Needles Eye Tunnel in South Dakota’s Custer State Park on Friday when a motorhome tried to thread the narrow opening and became stuck. "I think he just thought he could get through," they said.

RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Government & Politics

California isn’t doing its part to avert the Colorado River crisis by upgrading its aging water infrastructure and is instead spending billions on pet projects, Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman said Monday.

“It’s because they do stupid things like spending money on high-speed rail and don’t meet the basic needs of their citizens,” Hageman told Cowboy State Daily.

She added that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is one of the “top five worst governors in the United States.”

“How many billions have been wasted on healthcare for illegal aliens (in California)?” she asked.

, Hageman said California, with a population of 40 million, still relies on water infrastructure dating to the 1960s, when about 16 million lived in the state.  

That could saddle Wyoming and other Colorado River basin states with meeting an increasing demand for water against a dwindling supply, she said.

If the issue  escalates into a legal battle, probably before the U.S. Supreme Court, California and other downstream states might try going after Wyoming’s irrigation water, Hageman added.

Hageman was previously a water and natural resources attorney. She worked on cases related to the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the North Platte Decree limiting Colorado

’s use of the river’s water, and other interstate water agreements.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Red Lights Flashing"}]

Alarm over the condition of the river reached new levels Saturday, when Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona state line, reached its lowest level on record, CNN reported.

Nine days earlier, Lake Mead, on the Arizona-Nevada state line, also reached its lowest level.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead are the largest reservoirs on the Colorado River and supply hydroelectric power and other water needs to the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada.

The Upper Basin states are Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.

There’s concern that Lake Powell and Lake Mead could reach “dead pool,” or levels so low their dams can no longer generate hydroelectric power.

California should have seen trouble coming and acted accordingly, Hageman said.

“The red lights have been flashing for years, if not decades,” she said.

Wyoming Irrigation Would Prevail In Court

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon recently stated that he’s 

 that the Department of the Interior's new 10-year plan for the Colorado looks out for Upper Basin states.

However, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said it calls for “draconian water cutbacks" for her state.

Hageman said Arizona’s water woes stem from the same problems California has: Poor planning and misallocation of funds that should have gone toward water infrastructure.

“I think it might very well be Arizona that will try to drag the other states into court over this (Colorado River) compact,” she said.

Attorneys for Arizona or other Lower Basin states would likely try arguing that meeting industrial or municipal demands would be a “higher and better use” for water than irrigation in Wyoming, she said.

However, Hageman said she’s confident that’s an argument attorneys for Wyoming and the Upper Basin would win.

“The solution to their long-term water needs isn’t shutting Wyoming off from being able to irrigate,” she said.

Moreover, irrigation is good for the environment, she added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The 1922 Compact Stands"}]

Tensions over the Colorado River have led some to question whether the 1922 Colorado River Compact should be replaced.

Hageman said that might sound appealing at first, but drawing up a new compact could take years or possibly even “decades” in court.

And there’s no guarantee a new compact would be better for Wyoming and the Upper Basin, she added.

“It is what it is. And the reality is, we keep coming back to this compact,” Hageman said.

The best hope is for the Upper Basin states to argue for the existing compact to work in their favor, Hageman said. And she said she thinks that case can be made.

The compact calls for the Upper Basin to supply an annual flow of 7.5 million acre-feet at Lees Ferry in Arizona. 

It is viewed by some as a “delivery obligation” on the Upper Basin’s part, Hageman said.

“I would argue that it’s a non-depletion compact,” she said.

Wyoming has never used its allotted 14% of the Upper Basin’s allocation, she added. And until it does, there shouldn’t be a call for Wyoming’s supply to be depleted.

Some have suggested California wean itself from the Colorado by desalinizing Pacific Ocean water along its extensive coastline.

Hageman said she favors that option and thinks California is obligated to pursue it far more aggressively than it has.

“Israel is at almost 100% desalinization” of seawater to meet its freshwater demands, Hageman said. “It can be done.” 

However, California’s policy has been directed by short-sighted politicians who want to spend the state’s revenue on flashy projects, such as “Los Angeles-to-San Fransico high-speed rail,” rather than investing in desalinization plants and the like, she said.

“They failed all of us,” Hageman said. “They failed everybody on the (Colorado River) system.”

Hageman and Colorado River 8 17 26

<title>Hageman: California 'Failed All Of Us' And Made Colorado River Water Crisis Worse | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman says California should be accountable for the Colorado River crisis because instead of building water infrastructure it spent billions on "stupid things" like high-speed rail. In the meantime, Lake Powell has hit a record low.

Hageman: California 'Failed All Of Us' And Made Colorado River Water Crisis Worse

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Food

A so-called "prank caller" left a Cheyenne pizza shop holding 18 hot pizzas and a roughly $300 bill Friday.

[{"type":"text","text":"So L'Osteria Mondello did the only thing that seemed right."}]

The whole order was sent to the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Emergency Room. 

What began as a costly prank Friday afternoon turned into an unexpected meal for health-care workers after the caller who ordered the pizzas never showed up — and the phone number used to place the order apparently belonged to someone who knew nothing about it.

For L'Osteria Mondello owner Dave Agovic, the episode was particularly frustrating because those weren't the only pizzas flying through his ovens.

At almost the same time, the restaurant had another order for 12 or 13 pizzas and yet another for seven or eight.

"I had like over 40 pizzas in the same time," Agovic told Cowboy State Daily.

The kitchen was so slammed the restaurant temporarily stopped taking  orders, telling callers it could be an hour and a half to two hours before they could accommodate them.

[{"type":"text","text":"And the people ordering the 18 pizzas wanted them fast."}]

They told the restaurant the food was for some sort of children's wrestling club, Agovic said. His crew hustled and had the order ready in roughly 40 minutes.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then nobody came."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Something Isn't Right"}]

The pizzas sat above L'Osteria Mondello's ovens, where the restaurant keeps orders warm until customers arrive, but space was disappearing.

Agovic still had legitimate orders coming through the kitchen, and 18 unclaimed pizzas take up an awful lot of room.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, he called the number that had placed the order."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The person who answered said they hadn't ordered any pizzas."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That's when Agovic realized what had happened."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I figure out it's a prank,\" he said."}]

In about 3 1/2 years running the restaurant, Agovic said something like this had happened only once.

The restaurant generally doesn't require customers to pay in advance because Agovic doesn't want to operate that way.

"We trust people," he said. "Cheyenne is a small place, and Cheyenne is the place with wonderful people. And we really try to make sure we have that trust with the local community."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Now What?"}]

Agovic looked at the mountain of food and asked his employees what they should do with it.

[{"type":"text","text":"The staff tossed around possibilities."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then Agovic had an idea."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Why don't we deliver it to the hospital?\""}]

The crew agreed the emergency room sounded right, but he needed help getting the pizzas there. 

At the same time, a former L'Osteria Mondello employee who  worked for Agovic for more than 2 1/2 years stopped by to say hello. 

Ryan Lemley, 18, wasn't scheduled to work, but when he saw what was happening, he volunteered.

[{"type":"text","text":"Ryan loaded up the pizzas and headed for the ER."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He was my hero that day,\" Agovic said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Little Piece Of Italy"}]

For Agovic, feeding people is about considerably more than getting a pizza into a box.

He's originally from Montenegro, a small Mediterranean country in the former Yugoslavia.

He had lived in New York before coming to Cheyenne during the COVID-19 pandemic, initially expecting to stay only a couple of months.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he met a woman from Cheyenne and \"fell in love.\" "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She also introduced him to L'Osteria Mondello. "}]

"Actually, this place was way better than most of the places I try pizza in New York City," he said.

He became friends with longtime owner Joe Mondello, who was looking toward retirement but worried about what would happen to the restaurant he'd spent decades building.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, Mondello asked Agovic if he'd like to take it over."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Agovic told him he couldn't afford it."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Mondello offered to finance him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"There was a condition: Don't mess with the recipes."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Today, Agovic runs the restaurant with his wife, Anika Williams."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And Joe Mondello hasn't disappeared."}]

Agovic said Mondello still stops in, sometimes every week or every few weeks. Occasionally, he'll make pizzas and visit with customers.

"I feel this is still his place because that's his baby," Agovic said. "He built it for last 40 years. I'm just keeping tradition, and we are just one big family."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Food Is A Lifestyle "}]

That idea of food bringing people together is part of what Agovic brought with him from Montenegro.

In Mediterranean culture, he said, a meal isn't supposed to be something people inhale before rushing out the door.

"Food is just not quick bites," he said. "Food is more about lifestyle."

[{"type":"text","text":"Meals stretch out. Families gather. People talk."}]

At L'Osteria Mondello, Agovic said he wants customers to have some version of that experience.

"Many people can't afford to go to Italy that often or ever," he said. "So they can try a little bit of Italy in our restaurant."

And rather than letting hundreds of dollars worth of food go cold because of somebody's joke, the people at L'Osteria Mondello found another table.

“They are very hardworking people and they help save a lot of lives around. And I was like, let's donate, let's reward them.”

Pizza 8 17 26

<title>Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After a so-called "prankster" left a Cheyenne pizza joint stuck with 18 pizzas and a $300+ bill, the restaurant donated them to emergency room workers at the Cheyenne hospital. “Let's reward them,” said Dave Agovic, owner of L'Osteria Mondello.

Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

In the hyper-competitive world of multi-million-dollar western real estate listings, buzzwords like “regenerative agriculture” often pad a broker’s promotional materials. But a $29.9 million ranch just listed by Hayden Outdoors near Weston in northeast Wyoming has a little more heft behind its hype than usual.

That’s because Martha Stewart traded the Hamptons for the High Plains of Wyoming last year to come study the farm-to-fork ecosystem at Steiner Ranch, which was then called Sweetgrass at Thunderbasin. 

Stewart later praised the operation on her official Instagram account, highlighting the “extreme” energy of the ranch’s owners, Rick Steiner and Deirdre Wildman. 

She was also interested in the property’s unique capacity to feed its guests almost entirely from the surrounding land, praising multi-course menus that featured on-site harvests of goose, rabbit, beef, poultry and local berries, as well as produce from the ranch’s greenhouses, orangery, and its open-air culinary gardens. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ranch Grows Everything It Needs"}]

It was the culinary garden that got the ranch noticed by Stewart, who owns a 153-acre farm in Connecticut. 

“Last year, early in the season, we had a group of shooters here and they saw my wife’s culinary garden, which is truly an extraordinary thing,” Steiner said. “It’s a culinary garden that produces enough stuff for us to provide literally all the vegetables that 250 guests eat during the course of the fall season.”

Steiner’s wife, Wildman, gave them all a tour of the gardens, explaining their approach to a regenerative, farm-to-fork operation.

“So the guy said to me, ‘I gotta get our chief gardening officer out here to see this,’” Steiner said with a chuckle. “And we said, ‘chief gardening officer?’”

Steiner has heard all sorts of acronyms such as CEO, COO, CFO. But that was the first time hearing CGO.

“And then he said, ‘It’s Martha Stewart,’” Steiner said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting.’”

That Stewart visit wasn’t something Steiner thought would happen. But the following Monday morning he had a text asking if such and such date would work for Stewart’s visit.

“Sure enough, they were out here 10 days later and got the full tour of the gardens and the ranch,” Steiner said. “And we have a small animal farming operation that raises chickens and turkeys and ducks and geese, rabbits and goats, and those also, both eggs and meat, are served to guests.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What It’s Like To Serve Martha Stewart"}]

Wildman served breakfast, lunch and dinner to Stewart. For breakfast she even used one of Stewart’s own biscuit recipes. 

“I’ll be honest with you, there’s a little bit of anxiety as to whether or not your biscuits are going to meet Martha Stewart’s standard,” Steiner said. “When my wife asked me about it, I said, ‘Well she ate several of them so …’ She passed with flying colors.”

Stewart, Steiner added, was a down-to-earth, gracious guest.

“She’s got a great sense of humor and she’s very engaging, very straightforward,” Steiner said. “She’s not shy about telling you what she thinks. I just found her delightful.”

Stewart posted several pictures about her visit on Instagram, including some standing with Deirdre and others on the ranch.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Elevation Creates Unique Microclimate"}]

The ranch’s ability to grow so much produce is a feat in arid Wyoming, one that’s helped by the ranch’s elevation, which has created a favorable microclimate.

“I would say the surrounding (Thunder Basin) national grassland is a 16 to 24 inches a year precipitation environment, and the ranch I would say is 30 to 36 inches a year of precipitation environment,” Steiner told Cowboy State Daily. “The clouds roll in from whatever direction the wind is blowing and have to rise up to climb over the hills on the ranch and the ridge lines. When they rise up, they cool down and drop some moisture.”

That’s given the ranch all kinds of trees and created great habitat not only for gardening but for wildlife as well. 

“It’s the basis for what’s going on here in every dimension,” Steiner said. “It’s great for ranching. It’s really great for the wildlife. And it just makes the place much nicer and more scenic than most other places.”

The ranch’s location in so much wild and remote territory, with above-average water resources, has made it such an exceptional wildlife haven. 

“I’ve hunted in probably 40 countries,” Steiner said. “This one of the finest hunting properties on the planet. Really big elk, fantastic mule deer, white-tailed deer, lots of turkeys. 

"And it also provides exceptional bird-shooting experiences for pheasants and chukars, which we have been offering to guests for the last four years. It’s an amazing sporting property that also supports about 100 cow-calf pairs if you want to run some cows on the side.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Time For A New Steward"}]

Steiner’s path to Wyoming started far from the Black Hills. The West Point graduate served about five years in the infantry, then spent roughly 18 1/2 in Special Forces, eventually retiring as a Green Beret colonel. 

After the military, he built a business career in Denver, but had always had it on his bucket list to own a ranch.

“My business success was sufficient that I could make my dream a reality,” he said.

Still, it took him a decade looking at ranches in multiple states before he finally found what he was looking for. 

“One of the things that this ranch has going it for that people don’t really think about when they’re looking at ranches is it’s 45 minutes from Gillette Campbell County Airport,” Steiner said. “So you can fly to visit us on United, or you can fly in privately if you have that.” 

Steiner and his wife, however, feel ready to retire. A ranch like this one, capable of attracting someone like Martha Stewart to visit, needs a new steward, Steiner said.

The 5,582-acre Steiner Ranch in northeast Wyoming, a premiere spot for hunting trophy bull elk and mule deer, has just been listed for sale at nearly $30 million. Last year, Martha Stewart was at the ranch to study its farm-to-fork ecosystem.

Daily Smile: Wednesday, December 27, 2023

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