Flathead Lake map

In yesterday's blog post I forgot to include a map of Flathead Lake and Wild Horse Island to show you where it was located.

Our cruise went from a state park between Lakeside and Rollins down to and then around Wild Horse Island and then back.

The island with the ugly mansion is to the left of Wild Horse Island.

The island with the expensive house is one of the two small islands below and to the right of Rollins, MT.

The funicular is somewhere between Rollins and Lakeside.

Frustrating auction

Today Dan and I drove down to Missoula to attend the big feeder cattle auction.  I had hope of buying ten head of cattle.  The grass is not growing yet but I have plenty of hay to feed them.

We got to the auction after it started but that was alright as they were selling slaughter cows first.  We tried to walk through the cattle holding pens but we didn't get very far.  People were still bringing cattle to the sale and these cattle had to be moved through the aisles to their holding pen.   Then when we were in another aisle the livestock handlers moved a large group of cattle and suddenly we had a herd of cattle trying to get past us.   We gave up trying to check the holding pens out and went inside to the auction.

Because I planned to hire Evan to haul the cattle I needed to make sure I had ten head of cattle to make it worthwhile to justify the cost of transporting them.  What came through the ring were large groups of cattle (98 head, 63 head, 29 head, etc.) or the number of cattle were 4 or 3 or 2 or 1.  There were some groups of four or 3 or 1 that were good cattle but since I wasn't able to check all the holding pens out I didn't know if there were any more good cattle in the weight range I want that were coming through the ring.  I didn't want to get stuck with hauling only 3 or 4 cattle.

In the end I got no cattle though in hindsight I could have build a herd of ten head with quality cattle.  I was very frustrated by the end of the auction.

There is another large feeder sale on April 12 so I have another opportunity to buy a herd.

The prices for cattle are higher but the prices today weren't as high as had been listed for recent sales.  Some cattle at the lighter end of my desired weight range had been going over $2 a pound and all cattle sold today were well under that price range.   Even so cattle are selling for good prices.  The 98 head of cattle weighed a little under 80,000 pounds and a rough calculation of the total price based on the price per pound put the total sale price at over $105,000.   One person (a cattle buyer most likely representing a feedlot) bought the entire herd of 98.

Here is the view as Dan and I drove back from Missoula.  These are the Mission Mountains.

When we got to my driveway a large flock of almost twenty wild turkeys were in milling around the driveway entrance.  They slowly moved out of the way.

Eventually they moved from the yard to the fruit tree and garden area.  The larger turkeys could not squeeze through the fence and had to hop/fly to the top of the fence where they wobbled until they could hop back down to the ground on the other side of the fence.

Map of trees

I like maps.  Here is a map of all the trees in the U.S. that  NASA, the National Geological Survey, and the U.S. Forest Service put together.

http://www.geekosystem.com/america-tree-map/

Montana traffic count map

I recently got a map of Montana showing the traffic data for bicyclists on roads around the state. This is very helpful for bicyclists when they are deciding where to ride across Montana.

If you click on the map and see the larger image you can see the traffic counts across the state. Around Kalispell the roads average over 10,000 vehicles a day. That is even more than on some parts of the interstate highway which is less than 10,000 vehicles.

The map's legend below explains more stuff if you are interested. Or you can visit the state of Montana's web site with a similar bicycling traffic data map.

Global population density map

Here is an interesting map I came across the other day. It shows the population density of countries around the world.

Map of World happiness

A University of Leicester psychologist has produced the first ever 'world map of happiness.'

"Further analysis showed that a nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51).

Who's happy and who's not? The darker reds are happier and the yellows are unhappy. I noticed the greys have no definition. Then I noticed the greys are Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, among others. All countries (except Greenland?) with nasty wars. I guess they are off the unhappiness scale.



The 20 happiest nations in the World are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

The U.S. comes in at number 23.

For more about this, click here to read the full article.

Driving Orientation

Here is an interesting map showing which countries drive on the left and which on the right side of the road. This comes from a Strange Maps website which also explains the history of the preferences, and which countries switched from one side to the other. Apparently 66% of the people live in countries that drive on the right side of the road.


Dark red: drives on right.
Light red: used to drive on left, now on right.
Purple: used to have mixed system, now drives on right.
Light blue: used to drive on right, now on left (Namibia).
Dark blue: drives on left (mainly British ex-colonies).

You know, the purple countries are what worried me. A mixed system? How did that work? I assume not very well!

European countries I have visited

Here are the European countries I have visited.

I have made a few exceptions to my "don't count it if I was only there in an airport" rule. I included Poland even though I never left the plane when it made a stopover in Warsaw. The reason I count Poland is that the stopover was memorable.

The Warsaw visit was during my 1983 visit to the Soviet Union. This was my first airplane flight and my first visit to a Communist country. The plane, a Soviet Union Aeroflot plane, was parked away from the terminal while a few passengers got off and a few then boarded. The gray ugly terminal as seen from the plane, the few people visible, the military guards and vehicles, and the excitement and uncertainty at being in a Communist country all made this stopover memorable.

I also included Belgium even though I only saw the country from the train. This was before the Chunnel was built, and the way to get to Germany from England was to take a ferry to Belgium then a train across Belgium and France to Germany. I think I saw enough of Belgium and its people for it to count as a visit.

I listed Luxembourg over Liechtenstein though I am not 100% possitive it is correct. My friends Olaf and Kathi took me to this country for an afternoon when I visited them in Germany in the 1990s. I more remember more our meal at the outdoor cafe than I do the country itself. I probably was in Luxembourg as long as I was in Belgium.

(I don't know why Ireland shows up as black on the map. My image has it the light color of an unvisited country. However after I upload the image to Blogger Ireland is changed to black. *shrug*)

Create your personalized map of Europe

Countries I have visited

I think these are all the countries I have visited. I have visited parts of the Soviet Union before it broke up so I am not sure I listed all the countries I have visited that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Again I did not list countries where I merely used an airport to make a connecting flight or stop (other than Poland <more about that in my future post about the European countries I have visited>) . For example I was at an airport in Japan for a connecting flight but do not remember the airport or my time there. 20+ hours of flight time can do that to a person.

I have visited 22 countries, or 9% of the world's total.

North America: U.S., Canada, and Mexico

Europe: Britain, Scotland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Poland

Europe/Asia: Russia, Ukraine, Georgia

Asia: Thailand and Myanmar

Pacific Ocean: Australia and New Zealand


Create your own visited country map

Canadian Provinces I have visited

I debated about including Ontario in my list. I have visited Ontario only in the airport during a layout to make a connecting flight. I decided to include this Province because this visit was during my very first airplane flight during an university trip. Our group spent several hours there and we wandered all about. I have a vague memory of seeing some of the Toronto skyline from the airport. I think this visit was an unique enough memory to validate inclusion. *shrug*

Create your own personalized map of Canada

U.S. states I have visited

People often have asked me where I have traveled. The following map shows the U.S. states I have visited. I have not counted states where I had only an airport connection.

I have visited 26 states out of the 50 states and Washington D.C., or approximately half the states (though looking at the map it doesn't look that way!)

As you can see I am a "Western U.S." kind of guy. The eastern U.S. is supposedly nice, but I have this impression that it is too crowded. My impression of the southern U.S. is that it is too hot and humid. Maybe someday I'll get the travel bug again and visit the rest of the U.S. and see what they are really like.



Create your own personalized map of the USA (and send me a copy).

Map Population

Here is an interesting map. A view of the U.S.'s states based on their population size rather than their land mass.

The eastern U.S., rather than looking small, now is the great majority of the map.

The map has the U.S. looking like it is on steroids as the country looks so distorted and misshapen. It just looks and feels so wrong, doesn't it?

And where I live? Yes, where is Montana? It is so deflated for being the 4th largest state in terms of land mass.

Well... I prefer living in the uncrowded part of the U.S. With such a large difference between the land size and population size... the eastern U.S. must be awfully crowded.