Month: October 2023

Happy Haunters’ Day 2023!

The day we look forward to every year has finally arrived and we are giddy with excitement. Some kids grow up looking forward to the more traditional December holiday, we here at Intrigued celebrate the orange and black. The heavy lifting is already done for this season as we hold our haunted trail around the beginning of the month to avoid conflicts with the rest of the parties/events that are scattered across this month. As a result, we get to sit back, relaxing around the flaming pumpkins while watching the ghosts and goblins dance about the place. We wish you similar happiness in whatever manner you choose to celebrate the dark hours.

To help get you in the mood, our “partner in haunt” Paul has already put together our promo video from our recent Haunted Trail. It is impossible to bring you the expansiveness of the trail, but Paul does an excellent job of giving you a feel for the frights and fun to be had in the spooky woods.

Note, if the embedded video will not play, here is the direct link to it – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1FMpBNo3dk

Hit the jump to see a few more of our Halloween scenes to get this holiday kicked off right

Continue reading Happy Haunters’ Day 2023!

Grrrrr!…by Brad Marks

Well, I’m slowly getting my legs back under me – been a while since a run has knocked me this hard. It has been said the recovery period after an ultra is just a forced sanity check to reconsider recent decisions. Note, Linda always sends me off with “Make good choices” knowing good and well I’ve probably already made 5 bad decision in the time it took her to tell me that. On the bright side, there is a comforting sense of knowing I could probably outrun any “breathing” danger that might await me on my runs (assumption roots do not have noses). Just in case, there are always friends around I could kneecap if I needed extra get-a-way time. Don’t feel bad for them, they are thinking the exact same thing – I imagine the amusement a Bear would have if it walked out onto our trail and saw the lot of us whacking each other with hiking poles and making overt suggestions regarding who might be tastier. Speaking of humor and unexpected wildlife encounters, I know the perfect post for today and it comes courtesy of Brad’s recent drop of new adventures. While I continue to rest and ponder some of those recent decision, we’ll let Brad lead us down the trail.

Remember…”Make good choices”…

There were two old guys, probably Wildlife Intrigued retirees, sitting on the porch at a retirement home.  Each had a quilt on their laps and a shawl around their shoulders, happily rocking away in the August sunshine.  There was a long-forgotten elbow brace sitting nearby.  Nothing is said for what seems like forever.  Then Old Guy (OG) #1 says, “I saw a bear once.”

“Where did you see a bear?” OG#2 asks somewhat incredulously.

“One day when I was hiking in the woods.  It just jumped out of the brambles and stared at me,” says OG#1.

“It just jumped out of the woods?  What did it do then?” questions OG#2.

“It went Grrrrr!” replies OG#1.   (imagine a menacing growl)

“What did you do then?” quizzed OG#2.

“I s#!t my pants!” says OG#1 sheepishly.

“I would too if a bear jumped out of the woods, looked at me and went Grrrrr!” says OG#2 sympathetically.

“No, I mean right now when I went Grrrrr!”

(This joke was brought to you courtesy of my father-in-law.  I think it’s one of his favorites.)

Well, that nearly happened to Jan and I.  Except for the old guy part, the rocking chairs at the retirement home, and no quilts or shawls were involved.  Our pants stayed clean, too.  We were in the woods though.

Hit the jump to read more details about this Sequoian sized encounter!

Continue reading Grrrrr!…by Brad Marks

Brags, Stones and Scaups

I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again, I have no idea how I got anything done while I was in the corporate grind. Even with the forced downtime to recover from the recent ultra race, it still felt like I was “busy”. The bright spot is looking back I was able to get a number of the “Bri-do” items checked off. The break gave me a chance to turn my attention to the Mothership with two mega posts on this year’s Halloween Haunted Trail Prop Tutorials – the new 2023 tombstones (link here)

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

..and the Radioactive Spiders (link here). Along with those prop posts, also threw in the Bix 7 recap (link here) and the all too painful recollection from the recent 100K ultra attempt that caused the whole extended rest in the first place (link here). Definitely some heavy lifting posts. Now time to get back to the “wild’ side where we have plenty of material to bring you. Brad just sent me a number of new adventure posts you will surely enjoy and I still need to dip my toe into our Texas and Florida adventures. I want to give Brad and family a bit more time to focus on their affairs, so you are with me today….but first a quick brag.

Ruger Fastcat Beginner Title October 22, 2023

Congrats to Linda and Ruger who earned their Beginner FastCAT Title yesterday. Basically the 100 yard dash for doggies. Found something Ruger was basically born to compete in and he absolutely loves it. In previous runs he was in the 19.5mph range – dialed it back this weekend to 18.5mph which is still amazing (they had two patches of straw on the course covering muddy areas which he didn’t like and basically leaped over it each time likely accounting for the slower time).

Guessing about now you are wondering if we are ever going to get to the featured duck of the day. Without further delay…

Greater Scaup found at Sunset Park in Las Vegas in March 2023

Hit the jump to see a few more pictures of our yellow-eyed wave runner.

Continue reading Brags, Stones and Scaups

Black Forest Pie

Today’s post comes with some sadness as a member of the extended Intrigued family was laid to rest this afternoon. From wonderful stories learned and the good people that surrounds her, clearly she had a far reaching impact and will be truly missed by all. With deepest sympathies to the family, relatives and friends.

As you can tell from the post output as of late, I am still trying to recover from last weekend’s run. Getting antsy as sitting around (technically in this case, laying around) isn’t my thing and Linda knows all too well that a non-running Bri starts to get the crazies – NOBODY WANTS THAT! For now, trying to get through while doing my best to get ahead of the monthly quota for a change. Honestly, a bit of a win-win for all of us ha. Last post I brought you the Redhead Duck, If you recall, I mentioned with one possible exception, that species is pretty distinguishable in the field. At the time I was thinking the Canvasback Duck could cause some confusion. B. across the pond (link here), pointed out their Pochards are similarly colored and after some research on this UK Duck, I can absolutely confirm, not only similar, but basically doppelgangers. Fortunately for us, the two species do not overlap that much. For those Stateside, thought I would go ahead and cover the one we might have difficulties with.

Canvasback found at Sunset Park in Las Vegas, NV in March 2023

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of the Canvasback and a bit of a discussion on the similarities and differences between them and Redheads.

Continue reading Black Forest Pie

Red Back, Red Elbow, Red Feet, Red Knees and Redheads

I should probably start by addressing the elephant in the post – another year, another attempt at the 100K ultra run and unfortunately, the exact same results. Last year, extremely disappointed missing the 100K mark, this year ecstatic I made it one mile much less 50. Full summary in an upcoming post, but the synopsis is the master plan of completing the 50 mile race, tossing that finish for a DNF after one loop of the 100 mile category fell short (again). Called it after completing the 50 mile distance and accepted the finisher belt buckle. Too much to overcome – the elbow still in recovery and unable to stand up the day before the race thanks to blowing up the back tearing down the trail. Already missed the 50K this year, wasn’t going to miss this start. Again, details to come, but I lathered up with Tiger Balm before each loop and gritted through the 10 mile repeats. Bad enough, but tragedy struck on the second loop – nailed a hidden root in the middle of a prairie crossing and crashed down on the bad elbow. When it rains it … Anyway, on the 40->50 mile loop the back screamed it had enough, the elbow was pissed and the roots were living rent free in my head ever since the sun went down. Essentially 49 miles more than I had any expectation of completing, declared victory, graciously accepted the buckle and set my sights on next year. All things come at a cost as I am now paying the “pain toll”. Thought it appropriate to get out this year’s Fail collection while I recover (link here).

Going to be a bit of time before I’m back on my feet, so wanted to make the best of it and get a few posts out starting with today’s featured feathered friend.

Redhead at Sunset Park in Las Vegas March 2023

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this patron duck of ultra runners.

Continue reading Red Back, Red Elbow, Red Feet, Red Knees and Redheads

A Fitting Bird for the Times

I am officially half way through my hellscape with one event down and one event looming at the end of this week. We put an official wrap on this year’s annual Haunted Halloween Trail late Sunday night as we finished pulling all the props out of the woods. Based on the feedback we have received so far, the scare division had another successful year. I’ll let Brad weigh in on how he thought it went.

Halloween Haunted Trail 2023

To be honest, the trail doesn’t happen this year without a lot of people pitching in to help me out. My injury really put a strain on all the things that needed to be done to put this event on: prepping the trails, pulling everything out of storage, loading up the power sources, organizing the items into their zones, hauling it all down into the valley, putting it up, turning it on and then in a state of total exhaustion, pulling it all back up. A special shout out to my brother Ron who came down several weekends including the three days leading up to the event to help work out the kinks and keep everything rolling. There will definitely be posts coming to cover the highlights of this year’s haunt.

With that out of the way, I can now focus on the upcoming 100K attempt that launches 5am Saturday. Like with the Halloween party, a lot of things will have to go right to get through that. Now doing my best to catch up on sleep and tamper down some pains and strains that cropped up from last weekend’s efforts. In honor of what has past and what is to come, I bring you today’s featured feathered friend.

Female Phainopelpa found at Sunset Park, Las Vegas NV in March 2023

Hit the jump to read about our rather pointy feathered specimen.

Continue reading A Fitting Bird for the Times