Truck Stop... Its Been Too Long!

Look forward to hearing from you Daniel.

Old School, you must be delirious to enjoy that aroma. Sleep well. And hopefully we can eventually catch up in Carlisle.

I think you're forgetting that time at the 49er last fall when you stopped by to visit briefly. I'll be loading in Fresno today, but then taking the southern route out of California back east, so you've lucked out on missing a lecture from me lol. And no, I wouldn't miss truck stops either.

Bud. What kind of mythical creature is that on your study wall? It looks like a rabbit with horns, like something out of Monty Python.

Bud. What kind of mythical creature is that on your study wall? It looks like a rabbit with horns, like something out of Monty Python.

That, sir, is a jackalope. Some people think they don't exist, but they do. This example is one of the larger ones taken at the old western edge of its natural range, in northern California. They are rarely seen these days, but when they are, it's mainly in Wyoming.

Bud. What kind of mythical creature is that on your study wall? It looks like a rabbit with horns, like something out of Monty Python.

That, sir, is a jackalope. Some people think they don't exist, but they do. This example is one of the larger ones taken at the old western edge of its natural range, in northern California. They are rarely seen these days, but when they are, it's mainly in Wyoming.

Wait, you have a corpse of a jackalope hanging above your bed?

Only a kid who grew up in California would call a rare and valuable trophy mount a corpse!

Only a kid who grew up in California would call a rare and valuable trophy mount a corpse!

Nope... grew up in Indiana... we hunt and fish.... but (we) don't like dead animals staring at us while we sleep..

Not even a rabbit with a rack.

Actually, that rare and valuable trophy mount is hanging in a well-known establishment in Weed, California. I am sure I couldn't afford it if it were ever offered at auction at Sotheby's or Christy's, since it has an established provenance of having been taken by Benjamin Wilder, who, as I'm sure Daniel knows, was the second husband of Elitha Cumi, the eldest daughter of George Donner, for whom Donner Pass and Donner Lake were named.

The jackalope were plentiful when the first settlers arrived in California, but sadly were hunted to extinction in the Golden State by the late 1850s or early 1860s. They survived further east probably only because buffalo were much more plentiful there.

We raised herds of jackalopes in the Arizona desert. They would eat prickly pear cactus and spit the needles back at you. Tough hombres.