The ISE: Day 2

Day 2 at the International Sportsmen’s Expo went well yesterday.   We sold several bikes, we made new friends, our good buddy J Brandon joined us, and I grabbed a few more photos for the blog.

The CSC Stalker drew a lot of attention.  It’s camo theme is perfect for the International Sportsmen’s Expo…

I wandered around a bit at various times during the day (the ISE show ran until 8:00 p.m. last night).  One of the exhibitors featured metal-framed apparently indestructible sunglasses.  The guy whacked these hard enough on a metal block that folks across the room jumped.  I’m not in the market for expensive sunglasses, but I asked if I could get a photo and the guy told me to go for it.

The ISE features hunting and fishing stuff, and the displays are impressive.  One entire hall is devoted to hunting, and half of it featured trophies (that’s what we call stuffed animal heads).

Check this out…

This business of stuffing things holds a special attraction for me.  Whenever I get into a conversation about what’s going to happen when I kick the bucket, I always tell people to forget cremation, burial, and all that.   Don’t get an undertaker for me, I always say.  Find a good taxidermist.   Stuff me.   With baloney (well, I actually use another word that starts with a “b,” but I can’t write that here).   Stuff me with baloney, put me in front of a laptop, and I’ll keep on writing the blog…

I’m not a hunter any more (I used to hunt a lot, and I loved it).   I’ve kind of got this notion that it would be cool to get a rattlesnake and make a belt out of it, but I think that’s an idea that will never come to fruition with me.

One time when my buddy Jim and I were chasing jackrabbits in the west Texas desert about 45 years ago, I heard Jim scream like a school girl.   That grabbed my attention, of course, as Jim was a big macho guy with a deep voice.   When I looked over, Jim was up in the air and his feet we’re pedaling like something out of a roadrunner cartoon.   I knew what had happened, and when I looked down, I confirmed it.   Jim had stepped on a west Texas sidewinder.   Hence the scream.  And his current airborne condition.

The whole thing was pretty funny thinking about it in retrospect.   Jim was carrying a big .45-70 Ruger (basically, a buffalo gun), and he fired it straight down while he was up in the air screaming.  By the grace of God, ol’ Jim nailed that sidewinder and didn’t blow his foot off.   The snake had struck Jim, but it was so little its fangs failed to penetrate Jim’s shoe leather.  It’s a good thing, too (that old joke about “the doc says you gonna die” comes to mind).

After Jim de-adrenalized, he skinned the thing.  Jim said he wanted to make a belt out of it, but he was at least a size 44 and that snake was maybe 10 inches long.   We both looked at each other and started laughing.   “Maybe a hat band,” Jim said, but that poor rattler was even too tiny for that!

Okay, enough about baby sidewinders.   Take a look at this booth, and those tusks!

There were a lot of exhibits featuring African safaris.   I guess people have money to do this sort of thing.   The booths were interesting and I’ll probably get back over there to poke around a bit more.

I had walked over to the hunting exhibits in the morning, and it was cold.   I saw a booth selling camo jackets at super low prices.   One thing led to another, and, well, can you find me in the photo below?

If I could return to the topic of inane Internet comments for a moment, a couple of guys actually posted somewhere that they didn’t like the Stalker’s camo theme.  The reason?   If the bike fell on you and you couldn’t pick it up, they conjectured, no one would be able to find you.   Seriously, folks.   I can’t make this stuff up.  Charles Darwin had the right idea, but the wrong direction!   Anyway, we kind of joked around a bit about that when I came back with my $40 camo coat.   It’s reversible, with International Orange on the inside, so if the Stalker fell on me and no one could find me, I could just turn my new jacket inside out to up my survivability odds!

Hey, another highlight of the ISE show:  The food!   We’ve been sticking with the ISE barbeque offerings, we’ve trying different things, and it’s all been great!   I liked standing in line just talking to folks and taking in the pleasant aroma of sausage, onions, and peppers on the grill.   That fragrance would make a hell of a men’s cologne, I think.

Back to the CSC booth, and few more photos…meet Hannah, who told me she is not a model, but I think she should be…

And meet Matthew, a young fellow who was quite taken by the Stalker…

One or two more goofy shots, folks, and then I’m off to breakfast and Day 3.

These little stuffed frogs were $5.   I almost bought one, too.   Almost.   Then I had a thought:   I wonder if anyone makes a wrap that looks like frog skin.   Maybe the next bike could be the CSC Bullfrog.   We could do a horn that goes “ribbit…ribbit….ribbit…”

There was a fellow doing a fly casting exhibit that was pretty impressive.  He could drop that fly just about any place he wanted with astounding accuracy..

Like I mentioned earlier, our good buddy J showed up in the afternoon (he rode over the Sierras from the Carson Valley in Nevada).   This photo is kind of interesting.  I grabbed it late in the day, the lights were way down, and I had the Nikon’s ISO cranked nearly all the way up.   There’s lots of post-processing in Photoshop in this one, folks, but it brought in a useable image…

That’s it for this morning.  Keep an eye on the blog for our next ISE report, and for you Bajaenos, we’ll have more details on the Baja trip posted next week!