MONTANA AND COLORADO

As the Missoulian puts it, "There's rotten cellphone service, there's nonexistent cellphone service, and then there's what's happening just a few miles east of Ovando." Which is exactly nothing, because a 195-foot-tall cell phone tower near this tiny western Montana town has never connected a call to anybody. Clearview, a Florida-based company, fought hard for over a year first attempting to build its tower next to Trixi's Antler Saloon and Family Diner, a local landmark named after the riding and roping showgirl who bought it in the 1950s. But opponents defended their hangout with its tractor-seat bar chairs, forcing the company to build its tower on a ranch. Then, for months, nothing happened: No carrier has ever come forward to use the tower. Peeved at the delay, Missoulian editors want the county to force Clearview to either find a carrier or tear the tower down. As the Powell County planner said, the tower now resembles "a rather large lawn ornament."

Meanwhile, in Grand Junction in western Colorado, a couple is suing the county and the church next door for allowing Verizon to start building a cellphone tower disguised as a belfry atop Monument Baptist Church, reports the local Daily Sentinel. Homeowners Henry and Judith Drake view the non-bell-ringing structure as a potential health risk, and charge that its construction has derailed their plans to build a home nearby for their son and his family. It is nothing less than a "life-altering event," say the Drakes. County planners, however, say a belfry is just a belfry, and as a "minor site plan" it required neither posting nor notice to neighbors, whether they're foes of the faux or not.

ARIZONA: Locally grown. Courtesy Melissa Urreiztieta.

WASHINGTON

As darkness fell, Andrew Matson began the adventure he later described in Seattle's weekly The Stranger, when he began walking through Frink Park. Suddenly, he says, "It felt like the back of my head had been punched by scissors." No, he hadn't been mugged, unless you call a dive-bombing attack by a ticked-off owl a mugging. The owl slammed into Matson's head a second time, and this time the blow sent him running, waving a reusable shopping bag over his head. The experience led Matson to research aggressive owls, and he quickly found out that they've become a hazard at several local parks: One woman reported that a bird "grabbed both sides of my ponytail with his claw," a jogger had his hat knocked off, and another man "started wearing a construction hard hat." To be "owl quiet" in your Western park, here's a useful tip, should you walk at dawn or dusk: Owls are attracted to headphone wires and ponytails. And no, we have no idea why that's true.

COLORADO

It's been a century or so since anyone definitely saw a North American river otter in Boulder, Colo., so the town's wildlife staffers were excited recently when a motion-activated camera showed one of the animals -- very much alive -- on the banks of Boulder Creek, reports the Boulder Daily Camera. For some minutes, the otter, listed by the state as threatened, held onto a sucker fish almost as long as itself, while noshing delicately on the fishtail. "Kinda cute," commented Christian Nunes, ecology technician for Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks, noting that the animals, reintroduced in the 1970s, were still rare in the state, after mining and development knocked out the species 100 years ago.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Holy frozen vulture! An early April storm mixing rain, sleet and snow was so sudden and severe that a large turkey vulture actually froze in flight, then dropped like a stone onto the deck of a house in Sioux Falls, S.D. Adam Weber's wife was making breakfast when she yelled to her husband, "Adam! A large bird just fell out of the sky!" Weber found the bird covered in ice, reports the Argus Leader, but after a day spent melting and resting under a table, it recovered and apparently flew away that night. Another turkey vulture that landed on the Webers' roof, however, was not so fortunate, dying on impact.

UTAH

This is how Judy Fahys began her story in The Salt Lake Tribune regarding the "Hairpocalypse" coming because of weakened hairspray: "Up-dos that don't. Flips that flop. Bouffants that buckle." A lot of beehive dos in the Beehive State might fail if the Utah Division of Air Quality fights air pollution by limiting the amount of volatile organic compounds in hairsprays to no more than 55 percent, well below the current allowance of 80 VOCs. Matt Tribe, a marketer for Ogden Beauty Supply, says regulators would be smarter to target the massive pollution caused by cars and industry, adding that the ban insults women who will "have to wear their hair down because it just won't hold." The hair-care industry plans to fight back, and as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently learned when he attempted to ban Big Gulps, people tend to resist when they're ordered to do what's really, really good for them.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

MONTANA

A pygmy goat walks into a bar on a Sunday afternoon -- and no, this isn't the setup to one of those jokes; this really happened in Butte, Mont. The little goat seemed to enjoy the outing until a public-health-conscious patron called the police, who came and took the animal to a shelter. As to how the goat found its way into the bar, the mystery remains. But diligent reporting by the Montana Standard traced the missing goat to a petting zoo based at a nearby hot springs resort, which, despite its many amenities, apparently doesn't serve drinks to goats.

NEVADA: That about covers it. Courtesy Owen Baughman.

IDAHO

A gun-manufacturing company called III Arms wants to create a brand-new town in rural Idaho for about 7,000 future-fearing "patriotic American families." Apparently, worldwide catastrophe is imminent, so like-minded people ought to clump together. And that, the town's organizers say, means that bearing arms is not a right but a requirement, according to the Huffington Post. All residents 13 years old and older must wear sidearms when visiting the town center, and prospective residents must pay a $208 application fee and sign a "Patriot Agreement," specifying that every adult will own an automatic rifle, 1,000 rounds, and a survival stockpile for when the outside world erupts in chaos. An artist's conception of the Citadel shows a double-walled town, a new III Arms factory (the primary employer), and a firearms museum with reflecting pool, along with a farmers market, homes and schools. Organizers, who insist that they are not "wackos, cultists or racists," also plan to create a bank and issue Citadel coins in silver and gold. So far, more than 200 people have signed up.

WASHINGTON

An 82-year-old man suffered little more than a few bruises after tackling a burglary suspect one-third his age. Terry Miracle of Longview, Wash., was weeding his garden when he heard the police chasing somebody. As the commotion grew nearer, Miracle told The Seattle Times, he remembered his high school football training from 65 years earlier and got into position. And so, when the running man glanced back at his pursuers and stumbled toward him, Miracle launched what he called a cross-body block, tripping Morgan Perry Bluehorse, 27, and knocking both himself and Bluehorse to the ground. That enabled police to catch up and nab their man, who had a long history of burglarizing area businesses. As one grateful policeman joked, "It took a Miracle" to catch the bad guy.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

MONTANA

"If Montana residents can scrape it up, they can eat it," said The Associated Press, about a roadkill-salvage bill signed by the governor April 4. "It really is a sin to waste good meat," is how Democratic state Sen. Larry Jent of Bozeman put it. Elk, deer, antelope and moose are all fair game for retrieval under the bill, though an earlier version would have also included furbearers and some gamebirds. Opponents, however, worried about the safety of the meat: "Despite its good intention, it doesn't pass the smell test for me," explained Sen. Kendall Van Dyk, D-Billings. Still, everyone seemed to agree that, law or no law, few drivers are likely to crash into an edible animal just to avoid a trip to the supermarket. "We don't have very many suicidal drivers," Jent said.

COLORADO

When Pitkin County, home to Aspen, adopted a Renewable Energy Mitigation Program designed to make owners of mega-mansions pay for their electricity load, few people predicted that just one 15,000-square-foot house would generate almost a half-million dollars for the program. Usually, homeowners offset a building's energy use by installing solar panels or geothermal heat pumps, but in this case, reports the Aspen Times, the electrical demands to melt snow from driveways and heat an outdoor pool and spa were just too much: The home's amenities drove the residence over its energy budget. Owners must now pay the county $468,947, which will be used to fund energy conservation projects throughout the Roaring Fork Valley.

UTAH

True or false, asks Colby Poulson, who lives in Farmington, Utah: Earth Day was created in 1970 to celebrate all the wonderful ways that our society benefits from mining and burning fossil fuels. If you answered "true," you just might be an elementary school student in that state, thanks to a poster contest sponsored by the Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining and a group of petroleum engineers. Their information for the contest tells children that without oil, gas and mining, there would be "no electricity, no diamonds and no Disneyland." As for alternative energy and the need to stop air pollution and contain global climate change, there's not a word about that from the contest sponsors. Poulson, the father of a kindergartner, was incensed: "I'm disgusted that the state is backing propaganda like this in our schools, especially after a winter filled with some of the worst air quality we've ever seen," he said in a letter to The Salt Lake Tribune. "It makes me sick."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

UTAH

If you want to watch the latest death-defying sport in the red-rock outback of southeastern Utah, check out "World's largest rope swing" on YouTube, which has racked up more than 17 million views, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The video shows roped climbers leaping off the top of an arch and then swinging back and forth in a huge arc. Although the camera-equipped swingers and their watching friends gasp with awe and laugh throughout the wild ride, the sight can give you the creeps: What if there's a miscalculation and a swinger smashes into the side of the arch instead of blowing through? Something like that just claimed the life of 22-year-old Kyle Lee Stocking, of West Jordan, Utah, who jumped off Corona Arch near Moab in March. He didn't hit the arch itself, but unfortunately used a rope that was longer than the 140-foot fall. Stocking plummeted to the ground and died from the impact.

Ewe got any snacks? Price Chambers/Jackson Hole News and Guide

ARIZONA

Shaun McClusky, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Tucson, believes in a do-it-yourself police force. Because the city's cops aren't adequately funded, he told the Arizona Daily Star, he and his supporters have raised $12,000 to buy shotguns and provide firearms training for anyone who lives in a crime-ridden neighborhood. Asked whether his vigilante move might cause legal problems, McClusky said, "Saying guns are responsible for killing people is like saying spoons are responsible for making people fat. If someone wants to bring me the publicity for free and sue me, bring it on." Meanwhile, City Councilman Steve Kozachik found McClusky's logic difficult to follow: "To suggest that giving away ... loaded shotguns in high-crime areas will make anybody safer is pure idiocy. This is coming from a purported leader in the local Republican Party, the same group who last year auctioned off a Glock and rifle as fundraisers. ... They're totally out of touch with the values of this city."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

One-percenter travel

Western "luxury hotels" are offering innovative high-end outdoor recreation experiences to attract wealthy customers, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colo., advertises an "ultimate adventure package" that includes "a three night stay in a Deluxe King room, a snowshoe tour (with lunch) and a twilight dog sledding excursion through the still, snowy wonderland of Aspen," for $2,150 per couple. However, "some programs don't fly," the Journal observes. "The Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach, Calif., created a $5,000 per-person, two-night stay that included one day of fishing and another of picking produce, each accompanied by a resort chef" who ended it with dinner -- but nobody bought that designer tourist package because "it was too complicated." The Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point, Calif., tried to hire professional surfers to give lessons to guests, but scheduling the lessons "becomes a challenge," a hotel spokeswoman told the Journal, as the pesky surfers rank the work below their top priority; you never know when they'll "fly off to go where the waves are."

Effluent for the affluent

Cruise ships dump their waste products in coastal waters, so voters in the northernmost state passed a 2006 ballot measure banning such dumping -- a futile rebellion, it turns out. The law would have become effective in 2015, but the "cruise industry" persuaded Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and fellow Republicans to override the voters in February. The Legislature passed Parnell's bill, which allows cruise ships to "indefinitely discharge ammonia, a product of human waste, and heavy metals, dissolved from ship plumbing," reports the Anchorage Daily News. "Ammonia can contribute to algae blooms and harm shellfish. Copper, a heavy metal, has been shown to hurt the homing sense of salmon -- their ability to smell -- in freshwater." State regulators do require cruise ships to treat raw sewage before discharging it, and the industry argues that any pollution in the total discharge streams will be quickly diluted by seawater. But ban supporters -- including "fishing groups, environmentalists, Alaska Native organizations and residents of coastal communities" -- have their doubts. Democratic Rep. Les Gara warns in the Juneau Empire that the pollution will harm salmon runs. "As an avid fisherman, I don't believe in trading wild fish for cruise ship waste."

This edition of Heard around the West was guest-edited by Ray Ring.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

Traveling in the clouds

"Marijuana tourists" are expected to converge on Colorado and Washington, hoping to score without fear of handcuffs, because voters in those states legalized recreational pot last November. Arthur Frommer, founder of the famous Frommer's Travel Guides, observes that "already, hotels in Seattle and Denver are reporting numerous requests for reservations by pot supporters planning visits." The ballot measures didn't prohibit purchases by out-of-staters, so now, both state governments are scrambling to craft regulations limiting marijuana tourists to small purchases -- maybe an eighth of an ounce, enough for five to 10 joints, reports The Wall Street Journal. A special Colorado "task force" of cops, marijuana businesspeople and legislators recommends that signs be installed in airports and along the state's borders "telling visitors they can't take pot home" to other states, AP reports. Dan Pablon, a Denver legislator, says firmly, "Marijuana purchased in Colorado must stay in Colorado." All this presumes that the Obama administration will hold off enforcing the federal ban on recreational pot.

Pre-emptive road rage? Courtesy Don Creclius

Fabulous Las Vegas

The millions of tourists on the Las Vegas Strip might have a hard time finding any trace of local history, given the proliferation of ever-more-absurd casino hotels mimicking exotic destinations –– the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Egyptian pyramids, and who knows what else. But local officials are promoting a landmark that has been flashing since 1959 (around the time, many imagine, that Las Vegas history began). We're talking about the 25-foot-tall, diamond-and-star-shaped neon sign that proclaims: "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas." This sign was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, probably due to the power of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid as much as to its national importance. Even people who've never been to Las Vegas know the sign because it often symbolizes the city in movies, news reports and YouTube videos. "People come from all over the world and want their picture taken ... by the sign," Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak told the Las Vegas Review-Journal recently. "It's oftentimes impossible to get a parking space (near it)." Rest assured: County officials are spending $800,000 to add about 20 new parking spaces near the fabulous sign, along with "button-controlled crosswalks and traffic lights to make pedestrian access easier," the Review-Journal reports. Mark Rumpler, a "tribute artist" who dons a white leather Elvis Presley costume to pose with the sign for tourists' snapshots, is among those happy about the improvements.

This edition of Heard around the West was guest-edited by Ray Ring.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

MONTANA

After former Democratic Congressman Pat Williams attacked a certain sacred cow at the University of Montana, reaction was swift. Here's what he told The New York Times: "We've had sex assaults, vandalism, beatings by football players. The university has recruited thugs for its football team, and this thuggery has got to stop." Williams, now a regent of the Montana University System, quickly tried to make it clear that he was only talking about a few athletes, rather than a majority, but the backlash has been fierce, with the Montana Quarterback Club going so far as to circulate a petition for his ouster. But given that the reason behind his interviews with the Times and espn.com was the upcoming rape trial of a suspended University of Montana quarterback, perhaps "thuggery" was not too strong a term.

UTAH

As the Logan Herald Journal delicately put it, "Sex toys are a ticklish topic. Just ask the guy who stole a certain item recently from the Persian Peacock in downtown Logan. …" That particular guy, who remains anonymous, was not the smartest thief in town, seeing as how a surveillance camera caught him in the act. Alert storeowner Jessica McWhinnie swiftly posted a picture on the Web, not of the thief, but of the stolen item, threatening the "dude" in question with exposure if he didn't pay her $32 "for the toy you felt OK about stealing from a small local business." In no time flat, $40 in cash was stuck in the store's door, causing Persian Peacock's McWhinnie to post a final message of "WOW," adding that from now on, shoplifters "will be recorded on video and turned over to police after we have uploaded the videos to Facebook and YouTube."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

IDAHO

Some state legislators like to rail against government intruding into people's lives -- unless, of course, those same legislators want to do the intruding themselves. Idaho Republican State Sen. John Goedde recently introduced a bill requiring all high school students to read "and comprehend" Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, a doorstop of a novel about fed-up industrialists opting out of society. Then, after plowing through some 600 pages of leaden prose, the students would have to pass a state-approved test about the book, reports Time magazine. Scores of people commented on the bill, which Sen. Goedde admitted was largely a symbolic gesture, but one observation struck us as particularly apt: "There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves Orcs."

New Mexico: Probably also gluten-free. Courtesy Rebecca Quintana.

UTAH

Which city is more polluted -- Beijing or Salt Lake City? High Country News explored that question recently as both places endured month-long inversions. Beijing wins the contest, but after Salt Lake City became ultra-smoggy this winter, more than 60 doctors asked the state to declare a public health emergency. Signing on to a letter drafted by Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the doctors charged that the air trapped in valley bowls was so bad that breathing it was like forcing everyone to smoke cigarettes, an assertion that state regulators denied. The doctors asked Utah to make mass transit free, order industrial polluters such as Kennecott to cut emissions in half, and require all drivers to reduce their highway speeds to 55 mph, among other measures. Still, the air used to be filthier, notes The Salt Lake Tribune: "Utah's air quality has actually been improving in the 40 years since Congress passed the Clean air Act. Older Utahns can tell stories about the soot that their windshield wipers would push away during inversions of that era."

CALIFORNIA

An Anatolian shepherd dog from Turkey may not have won Best in Show at New York's recent Westminster Dog Show, but in San Diego, at the Zoo Safari Park, that particular breed and some mutts recruited from animal shelters are appreciated because they're willing to lie down peaceably with cheetahs, serving as companion animals to those solitary and increasingly rare big cats. Cheetahs may be able to go "from zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds," reports The Associated Press, but they are "also the world's biggest scaredy-cats, so much so that they don't breed easily and are in danger of going extinct." In the wild, "in Africa, cheetahs were treated as vermin for years, like people in the United States treat coyotes," said Jack Grisham, coordinator for cheetah survival in North America. So there may come a day when cheetahs succumb to pressures from development and poachers. At least in zoos, thanks to dogs that "serve as playmates and provide the cats with guidance," they have a chance at perpetuating their species. The cross-species partnership has been paying off in San Diego: 135 cats have been born in captivity.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

NEVADA

Bob Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects was sad to see Energy Secretary Steven Chu leaving after four years on the job. Grabbing a garland of verbal images to describe Halstead's reaction, the Las Vegas Review-Journal said Chu was "a breath of fresh air for Nevada after a string of Energy secretaries tried to cram the Yucca Mountain Project down the Silver State's throat when no other state was pegged for shouldering burial of 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants and the military."

NEW MEXICO

The Sierra Soil and Water Conservation District says gophers threaten irrigation systems, and it's offering a bounty of $3 for tails from animals trapped within district boundaries near the White Sands Missile Range. The Sierra County Sentinel includes a helpful drawing "because there is some confusion as to what a gopher looks like." No size is indicated, however, and the artist's rendering of a gopher concerns us because it looks less like a gopher than a dinosaur -- though, admittedly, one with a cuter tail.

COLORADO

It took a decade, but Aspen's bear-proof garbage containers have finally been breached by a clever bruin, reports the Aspen Daily News. "We finally got a bear that was bright -- brighter than we are," said Jeff Woods, director of the city parks department. And once the bear opened the container in front of City Hall, every trashcan in town became obsolete.

NEVADA

Lance Gilman, who owns 65 percent of sprawling Storey County near Reno -- as well as the county's first licensed brothel -- recently won election to the board of county commissioners. Does anybody have a problem with that? Certainly not Carrie Northan, a bartender at Virginia City's poetically named Bucket of Blood Saloon. "You can't hold it against a person that they're involved in a profession that's been in existence since before Jesus walked around in his sandals," she told The New York Times. Gilman said he knocked on some 1,500 doors, and just two people even mentioned his brothel, "and only to compliment him." The prostitution business goes back to the mid-19th century, said University of Nevada sociologist Barbara Brents, when mining booms flooded the region with single men. These days, just 10 or so of Nevada's lightly populated counties contain licensed brothels.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.