Bang for the Buck, During Hunting Season

 It is the quiet season.  Hunting season.  That is a bit ironic, isn't it?

I started my annual invasion of Utah a couple weeks early this year.  It was quite a surprise to see so many hunters.  A couple of them explained that a change in the legal hunting season this year has resulted in more elk hunters.

I never hear any guns during hunting season.  Just think of all the equipment these guys own, the fees, and all the trouble they go to; and apparently, most of them never get a shot off.

Maybe they see hunting season as just an excuse to drive around in their side-by-sides in cool refreshing weather, camp with the boys, and escape the women-folk for a few days.

It can be enjoyable to be exposed to the culture and comradery of sports that you know nothing about it.  I have experienced this with mule-handlers and long-distance horse riders.  Even hang gliders, a couple times.  I wish it happened more often.  Fly fishing culture interests me; identifying  animal tracks; learning survival skills.

Not everything is recreation.  It is possible to have interesting conversations with gas-field workers, ranchers, firewood collectors, and road-grader operators!  It takes some luck and skill to talk to guys who have a job to do.  Ranching, in particular, is something that would be fun to know more about.  It is what the land in the western states is best at.  Oddly enough, I have never had a chance to talk to a logger.

It seems counter-intuitive but normally I avoid hikers and even mountain bikers, probably because they are part of the culture of the big cities.  Oddly I am turned off by most campers, who seem like mere scenery tourists and generator-morons.