Talk about a hidden gem and a great destination: The Yanke Motor Museum in Boise, Idaho is about as good as it gets. There’s precious little information on the Internet about it, but trust me, it’s worth seeing. It’s not widely publicized and you can’t just roll up and visit its treasures; admission is by appointment only. My advice is to make the run to Boise and make the effort to get an appointment. The Yanke Motor Museum contains a world class automobile, motorcycle, tractor, and musical instrument collection.
A 1924 Packard convertible is one of the first vintage cars you encounter upon entering the Yanke Motor Museum.
As you know from reading this blog, I’m a big fan of car and motorcycle museums, and I never heard of the Yanke Motor Museum. It’s the only automotive museum in Idaho, and it never appeared on my radar before. I only came across it because I Googled “motorcycle museums in Boise.” Some of the Internet services won’t tell you that it’s by appointment only, but that’s the deal. Further complicating things, some of the GPS programs get the directions wrong. We used Waze to find the address and it worked.
There is a lot to see at the Yanke Motor Museum. We were lucky: Sue and I had the place to ourselves. We made an appointment and new good buddy Tyler (one of the curators) pulled up just as we entered the parking lot. Tyler was in a silver Subaru WRX, so I liked him right away. He opened the place just for us, and then he had to walk around turning all the lights on (and he flipped a lot of switches to do that). The place is huge.
A 1957 Cadillac. This is a beautiful car. I was 6 years old when it rolled off the assembly line.
I didn’t quite know what to expect because when we entered the main display area (after walking through a collection of musical instruments), I at first saw mostly automobiles. They were impressive and they were plentiful (see the Packard and drop-dead-gorgeous pink Cadillac above), with the odd motorcycle parked here and there. There was a Ural and a couple of Harley dressers, so I asked Tyler if there were more motorcycles. He smiled and pointed me toward another hall. Wow, were there ever! In fact, my back started bothering me lugging my boat-anchor Nikon D810 and 24-120 lens around to get the photos you see here, but it was worth it.
A Ural with a sidecar. Good buddy Dan owns one of these.
Before we got to the main motorcycle hall, we saw several more interesting motorcycles and the odd trike or two. There was a ’37 SS Jag replicar. It was flanked by a stunning cherry red Harley Servi-Car and a custom flathead Ford trike with Offenhauser heads.
Sweet!A fire engine red Harley Servi-Car.A flathead Ford trike. Check out the front brake.A custom in every sense of the word. The workmanship is stunning.Offenhauser heads. Offy also made complete 4-cylinder engines. Think decades of Indy 500 dominance.One last view of the flattie trike. Even the tires are beautiful.
Susie and I were blown away by the classic cars and the multiple motorcycles we encountered at the Yanke Motor Museum, and we hadn’t even made it to the motorcycle room yet. In the main hall, classic motocross and other bikes were scattered among the cars and other vehicles.
I once had a friend who thought a Bultaco was a Mexican food item. No kidding.
There was a flatbed truck with a Harley XLCR Cafe Racer, a vintage Indian Chief, and a vintage Harley.
I could have bought a new ’77 XLCR just like this one for $3,000, but I couldn’t justify spending $3,000 for a motorcycle back then. I don’t know who I thought I had to justify it to.A 1941 Indian Chief. Those fenders!
When we entered the motorcycle room, it was like being a kid in a candy shop. No, wait, I take that back. I used to be a kid in a candy shop six or seven decades ago. This was better. Just about everything imaginable was there if you are looking for cool motorcycles. Desert racers, WW II military Harley 45s, modern bikes, custom bikes, vintage Harleys, vintage Indians, scooters, Whizzers, vintage flat track and flathead Harley race bikes, and more. The Nikon was giving me fits weighing heavily on my lower back, and leaning over to get macro engine shots was getting downright painful, but I didn’t care. Susie had an Advil, I swallowed it, and the photo safari continued. I was on a mission. Anything and everything for our ExNotes readers…that’s our mantra.
In the motorcycle room…check out the Army 45s.A 1934 74-cubic-inch Harley VLD flathead, another stunning motorcycle.A Lambretta!Whizzers! Carlos, take note!Harley-Davidson flathead flat track racing motorcycles.Ah, the patina! Check out the steel shoe!Flathead porn.An Army 45 in decidedly non-Army colors.
The Yanke Motor Museum also contained some cool military stuff, including Jeeps and a few cannons. Cannons!
A 1948 US Army Jeep.A 25mm Hotchkiss cannon.The same action as a Ruger No. 1. A classic falling block concept.Another falling block artillery action.A custom scope mount for direct fire. This thing must be a hoot to shoot. Folks at the Museum reload for it.
I thought it couldn’t possibly get any better, but when I peeked into an adjoining room I spotted several 37mm and 25mm projectiles in various stages of the reloading process. Imagine that: Reloading for your own cannons! There’s no doubt about it: The folks who own and run the Yanke Motor Museum are our kind people.
Ron and Linda Yanke started the Museum. An extremely successful entrepreneur, Ron is unfortunately no longer with us. The Yanke family started the business empire with a machine shop. Ron Yanke expanded the business holdings to sawmills, an air charter service, a firefighting equipment manufacturer, extensive timberland holdings, several real estate companies, a mechanical contracting firm, a manufactured housing company, and a couple of banks. He was one of three original investors in Micron Technology, the world’s second-largest memory chip manufacturer.
I don’t know what it is about prisons that fascinates us. Susie and I have been on three prison tours (the Old Idaho State Penitentiary, the topic of this blog, is our third; the earlier two were Alcatraz and the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville). It’s not just us; abandoned prison tours are a hot ticket and Hollywood loves to do prison movies. The Shawshank Redemption was a hugely successful film (I watch it every time it’s on the tube), and Netflix is currently running Orange is the New Black (don’t waste your time on that one). Google the topic “Why we love prison shows” and the Internet will light up with underlying psychological reasons: The ultimate loss of control, the inherent brutality of man, surviving after losing everything, etc. But that’s enough armchair psychology…let’s get on to the topic of this blog: The Old Idaho State Penitentiary.
The entrance to the Old Idaho State Prison. The warden’s office was immediately on the left as you entered.
Idaho (actually, Idaho convicts) built the Old Idaho State Penitentiary in 1870. The construction was sandstone mined from the hills surrounding Boise. It held prisoners for 101 years, and during that time, this old prison had its share of escapes, executions, and experiences that make for an interesting tour. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Old Idaho State Penitentiary is that the grounds are so beautiful. It’s more like a botanical garden than a prison.
The landscaping is magnificent. Wandering the grounds, it almost feels like a college campus (with, of course, solitary confinement and Death Row).Another scene from inside the prison grounds.
One of our fellow tourists asked our guide, Eric Overzet, if the grounds were as nice when prisoners were housed there as they are today. Eric told us they were.
The first structure we entered was the prison’s multi-purpose building. It served a number of functions, including being a shirt factory, a shoe shop and then a shoe factory, a bakery, a license plate shop, the laundry, a hobby room, and a loafing room. It also housed the prison showers.
Inside the prison’s multi-purpose building. The prison showed movies here, too.
The prison’s shoe and bakery outputs were particularly successful after they started selling to the public, and to hear Eric tell it, they made a hell of a product for a very low price. The Idaho State Penitentiary manufactured shoes that cost a fraction of what store-bought shoes cost, and they lasted much longer. The shoes were so good the prison worked itself out of the market. They saturated the Boise shoe market and the business folded. Other ventures were more successful. When the prison bakery started selling donuts to the public, word quickly spread that they were the best donuts in town. The prison produced 4,000 donuts a day. People lined up outside the prison to buy them. A lot of donut sales were to police officers (some of whom probably put the guys who made the donuts in prison).
Next we toured the cell blocks. Things looked bleak. You wouldn’t want to live in a place like this.
Eric Overzet sharing stories of prison operation and famous prisoners.The different halls had different kinds of cells. This cell housed four people.
We saw the levers that opened and closed the cell doors. Seeing them was like seeing a scene out of a movie. As a retired mechanical engineer and all-around gearhead, I enjoyed seeing the mechanism. Everything operated mechanically; there was no software or any of the other intangible things we would use today.
The locking devices were patented in 1897. The Pauly Jail Building Company is still in business today.Levers for opening selected cell doors or all cell doors at the same time.
There are five prison halls in the Idaho State Penitentiary, and several different forms of “special housing” (i.e., solitary confinement). I couldn’t remember all the ones Eric described, but one stuck in my mind: A set of underground 4 ft by 4 ft by 4 ft cubes for solitary confinement. There were hatches at ground level through which a prisoner entered. It was hot when we were there. I can’t imagine what it must have been like in those little boxes in Idaho in the summer, nor can I imagine what it must have been like in the freezing winter months. In 1909, inspectors from the State of Idaho decided these 4 ft cubes were too cruel for human confinement and directed the prison to stop using them. The prison told the inspectors they agreed, and then they continued to use the little punishment boxes until well into the 1950s.
One of the “dark cells.”Another set of solitary confinement cells were known as “Siberia.”One of the “Siberia” cells.Another set of punishment cells.No shoes, no shirt, no service, and most definitely, no loafing.
As one might expect, the execution chamber and Death Row are areas that get the most attention. When the Old Idaho State Prison was in operation, hanging was the only execution method. Idaho uses lethal injection today, but when good old-fashioned hanging was in vogue the execution chamber was designed around it. The noose hung from a mount in the ceiling, with the trap directly below it. I shot these photos from the witness gallery window.
Death Row, coming up.Idaho uses lethal injection today; there are currently 8 men and 1 woman on Idaho’s Death Row. The modern Idaho State Penitentiary is just south of Boise; the women’s prison is in Pocatello, Idaho. When the Old Idaho State Penitentiary was in business, both men and women were imprisoned there (separately, of course).The noose hung from this fixture.The trap that dropped the condemned to their death.
You may want to go back up to the featured photo at the top of this blog. Old Tony Grooms (featured in that picture) was a real bad boy. There were several placards explaining the crimes of occupants in different cells and what they did while in prison. Old Tony had acid splashed in his eyes and convinced the prison guards he was blind. The guards figured it out when nurses were in the prison for a medical emergency and they saw Tony following them with his eyes. I can’t tell that story as well as our guide Eric can; that’s a good reason for you to visit the Old Idaho State Penitentiary.
We enjoyed the Old Idaho State Prison tour. You can also do a self-guided tour, but we were lucky. We arrived just as Eric’s tour was about to start. My advice is to go for the guided tour. Eric was a magnificent guide and entertaining storyteller, and he knows a lot about the place. We would not have gotten as much out of the tour just wandering around by ourselves.
The Old Idaho State Penitentiary is in Boise’s Historical District at 2445 Old Penitentiary Road. Admission is only $8. The guided tour is another $2, and that’s a hell of a deal.
I was downright giddy this past weekend, as I was about to do something I had never done before. When you’re my age and that happens, it’s something special. I was enjoying the feeling. I don’t get to experience new things too much anymore.
Right side view of my Uberti Colt Walker. It sure is pretty, but can it shoot?
The something I was about to do? I was going to shoot my 1847 Colt Walker replica revolver, a gun that is a cap and ball, black powder six shooter manufactured by Uberti in Italy. It would be the first time I had ever fired a black powder revolver, and it would be the first time I ever went through the drill of loading it myself.
There’s a bit of a story behind the Colt Walker. It’s than just a story. it’s part of our history, and it goes back to near the beginnings of the United States. Samuel Colt had invented his revolver with the 1836 Paterson model, manufactured by Colt in Paterson, New Jersey (hence the name). It was a brilliant design, but it was probably ahead of its time in an era of single shot weapons. That’s what most people thought, but Texas Ranger Captain Samuel Walker wasn’t what anyone might regard as “most people.” Walker was a Texas Ranger, and he and his men actually used the Paterson revolver in combat along the Mexican border. Colt Firearms had already failed as a business, but the Paterson revolvers did their job. Captain Walker and his Texas Rangers prevailed against their enemy.
Captain Walker wrote to Samuel Colt. Colt Firearms had folded, but Walker explained to Colt how effective his Patersons had been and he offered to help Colt design an even better handgun. This meeting of the minds led directly to the 1847 Colt Walker. As I mentioned above, mine is a reproduction of the original. I paid $343 for it about 5 years ago. Original Colt Walkers bring more than million dollars when they trade hands today (only a few exist of the 1000 Colts produced for the US Army and 100 Sam Colt made for marketing purposes).
Gus McCrae and his Colt Walker. I’ll bet he was sporting a Uberti when they filmed Lonesome Dove.
Modern firearms use cartridges that already have the primer, propellant, and bullet contained in the cartridge case. All we have to do is load the cartridge(s) and fire the gun. Cap and ball revolvers are different. Loading and firing them requires a series of steps far more complicated than firing a modern cartridge gun. Loading and firing a cap and ball revolver requires the following:
Inserting a measured amount of black powder (gunpowder, so to speak) into each of the revolver’s chambers.
Inserting a greased wad over the gunpowder.
Lubricating the bullet (typically referred to as the “ball” because the bullet is a cast round ball).
Positioning the ball over the chamber mouth.
Rotating the cylinder to position the ball under the revolver’s ram.
Using the ram to seat the ball in the chamber.
Filling the space above the ball with “grease” (a mixture of lard and other things).
Placing a percussion cap on each of the cylinder’s six nipples (the cap is the primer that ignites when the hammer hits it to initiate the gunpowder’s controlled rapid burn).
After doing all the above, I would then be able to fire six shots from my Walker.
Yours truly and good buddy Paul. We’ve known each other for more than 70 years.
My lifelong friend and good buddy Paul has been shooting black powder firearms for most of his life. Me? I’m a newby. I’d never through the cap and ball loading sequence outlined above and I was plenty nervous about attempting to do so. Basically, I’d be playing with guns and explosives. I asked Paul about a thousand questions about how to do this, culminating in a visit to his rancho in northern California. Paul was informed and patient, and he had a bunch of good things to give to me when I arrived, including:
Black powder.
Caps.
Balls.
Grease.
A loading stand.
Loading tools.
I was blown away by Paul’s knowledge, generosity, and willingness to teach me how to go about loading and shooting a black powder revolver. I don’t mind telling you I was a little nervous, too.
The loading stand Paul made for me with the Uberti in place. The long rod beneath the barrel is the loading ram. It pivots to force a ball into the chamber.
Paul told me that while you can load a black powder revolver without any tools, doing so is a lot easier if you have a stand. He had made a stand for me, and it fit the Walker perfectly.
A closer view of the loading stand with its tools mounted on the base. This is a cool setup.The tool on top is used for seating the caps (as in cap and ball) on the nipples. The lower tool is the butterknife, used for spreading grease on top of a seated ball.
Paul also made up three tools to help the loading process. Two of these (the butterknife and the cap seating tool) were integrated into the loading stand. The butterknife is used to fill the cavity above the loaded chamber with grease. The cap seating tool is used to push the percussion caps onto the nipples.
Paul fabricated this gunpowder measuring and dispensing device from a .30 06 cartridge. Note the powder charge markings on the shaft. I loaded 40 grains of FFF black powder in each chamber. This is a really cool bit of workmanship.
The third tool was the loading measure. Loading a black powder revolver involves inserting a measured amount of black powder into each chamber. Paul fabricated a precision measure from a .30 06 cartridge. It was quite clever, and it demonstrated Paul’s considerable design skills. I’ve known the guy literally all my life and he’s always surprising me with things like this.
FFF black powder. It’s a lot more sensitive than the powders we use today in cartridge guns.Percussion caps. They are, in effect, primers. One goes on the nipple of each chamber. It’s the last step in the loading process. When the hammer strikes these, they ignite and light off the black powder.Greased wads. These go over the black powder in each chamber, between the black powder and the ball.Yep. I’ve got balls. Lots of them, in fact.The grease that goes on each ball before it is loaded into the chamber, and then on top of the ball to seal the loaded chamber and prevent a chain fire event.
We had a very hot weekend and to further complicate things, the road to the gun club in the San Gabriel Mountains had been closed for the last several days (we were experiencing one of our many forest fires). On Sunday afternoon, though, the heavy smoke emanating from the forest fire (I could see it from my home) had lifted. I loaded the Subaru and headed for the range. When I arrived, other than the rangemasters I was the only guy out there. I had the range to myself. It was 97 degrees, but I could take my time, focus on everything Paul taught me, and make myself a black powder shooter.
A lubed ball ready to be rammed into the chamber. Notice the cutout in the frame that allows the cylinder to rotate into position such that the ball is directly beneath the ram.
The revolver stand Paul made was awesome. It held the revolver perfectly and greatly facilitated the loading process. I set the powder measure at 40 grains (the Walker can go up to 60 grains), filled it, and poured the powder in the first chamber. That was followed by a pre-lubricated wad on top of the powder. I dipped one of the balls in the grease and seated it on top of the chamber I had just charged with powder and a wad. Then I rotated the cylinder a few degrees and forced the ball into the chamber with the revolver’s ram. Damn, that loading stand was a cool fixture. I couldn’t imagine trying to do this without it. I repeated the process five more times, and I had all six chambers charged.
After that, I buttered the tops of each chamber. The purpose of doing so is to prevent one chamber’s ignition from lighting off the other chambers (such an event is called a “chain fire”). That sometimes happened on the original Colt revolvers, it was viewed as a design flaw, and Colt’s early investors threatened to pull their funding when it first appeared. I don’t know if that’s what led to using grease on top of the seated ball. Whatever Colt did to allay their concerns, Colt’s investors hung in there with him.
The next step was to install the caps on top of the nipples. I was a little more nervous during this step. The percussion cap is what starts the ignition sequence. If one lit off during installation…well, let’s just say I probably wouldn’t be typing this story. But everything went as planned.
I was ready to go, but my hands were slippery. You know, they say you can tell how good a housepainter is by how much paint he gets on himself. By that measure, I was not a very good cap and ball revolver loader. I had grease on my hands and it made holding the heavy Walker difficult. I wiped off my hands as best I could, picked up the Walker, and drew down on the target 50 feet down range.
To say I was nervous would be an understatement. Here I was, greasy paws and all, holding this monster 5-pound revolver, trying to focus on a tiny and distant front sight while trying to keep it centered in the hammer notch that serves as the Walker’s rear sight. I felt like a little kid playing with Dad’s gun when he wasn’t home. Calm down, I thought to myself. Focus on the front sight. As I increased pressure on the trigger and tried to hold the Walker steady, I could feel Sergeant Major Emory Hickman, my Dad, and Paul watching me (even though I was the only guy out there on that very, very hot afternoon).
KA-BOOM!!!!
The big Walker barked, I saw the flash, the muzzle flipped up, I felt the recoil, and smoke filled the air. I realized again: This is a BIG gun. Hell, Walker and Colt designed it so that if you missed the bad guy, you’d kill the horse he rode in on (the literal embodiment of what you say in a verbal altercation). It was .44 Magnum of its day, the Dirty Harry handgun of 1847. Do you feel lucky, punk?
Damn right I did.
I looked downrange, and I could see the first hole I had cut through the target. It was high, but Paul told me these things all shoot way high. My bad guy was toast. Nailed him right in the neck, I did. I was in the scoring rings! Whoooowee, this was awesome!
Six holes from six balls. Not a bad group for the first time I ever fired a black powder revolver. But that hole on the left? Where did that come from?
I fired five more rounds, gaining confidence with each shot. I became Captain Augustus McCrae. I wanted to throw a shot glass in the air and nail it in flight, right there in the saloon, just like Gus did in Lonesome Dove. I set the big Walker down on the bench and I called a line break (I was the only guy out there, but Captain McCrae wanted to do things right). As I approached the target, I saw a decent group for a guy with slippery hands shooting a cap and ball revolver for the first time on a blazingly hot afternoon. Then it was: Uh oh. I had put a shot off to the left in Mr. Bad Guy’s shoulder. I counted the holes in my nice-sized neck group, and there were six. Where did that seventh shot come from?
There’s a wad behind that tear in my target. It probably wouldn’t stop a bad guy, but I’ll bet it would get his attention.
Ha! That hole in the shoulder was made by the wad from one of the shots! It was still stuck in the paper, and when I lifted my iPhone to get a picture, it fell behind the target.
I was hot, sweaty, greasy, and still giddy. Time for another six rounds. Paul told me when you shoot these things, you’re lucky to get through two full cylinders. The guns get so dirty they get difficult to cock and fire after the first cylinder. A big part of the problem, Paul said, are the cap remnants. They break up and fall into the mechanism. He was right.
Fired percussion caps. Paul was right; they do come apart and fall into the mechanism. In the old days when you saw the hero of a Western movie point his gun toward the sky before cocking it for the next shot, it was to allow the spent cap to fall free of the six gun.
I got all the cap debris out of the Walker, loaded the gun again, and lit off six more. I’d already been on the range an hour and half. It’s like the amphibians say: Time’s fun when you’re having flies. A couple of shots from the next cylinder went a little high, but they were all in about the same area.
12 shots on target. My first 12 ever, and they were close enough for government work.
As I mentioned above, Paul told me all his cap and ball revolvers shot high, and that was what I found with mine. That said, I was enormously pleased with the results. The group was about the size of the orange bullseye. My aim point had been the center of the bullseye. If I held low and to the right, I’m confident I could put six rounds in the orange bullseye. Move over, Gus!
You know, on the way home, I was thinking about what our early Americans had to contend with when armed with cap and ball revolvers. It’s astonishing to think about winning gunfights, battles, and wars with weapons that are so heavy and take so long to load. My admiration for what they accomplished had been high; it was now even higher.
That ride home was quite a ride. I was going to call Paul to tell him about my success with the Walker and thank him again, but the radio was carrying President Trump’s speech live from Pennsylvania. He was only minutes into it and I was only half listening when I heard things crashing and then I heard several pops. And then a blood curdling scream. What I was hearing didn’t compute at first, and then I realized: Someone was shooting and I was hearing it live.
I arrived home a few minutes later and turned on the TV. What I saw hit me hard. The President escaped death by millimeters, and that only occurred because he happened to turn his head at precisely the right instant. I feel terrible for the retired firefighter who died and the others who were injured. It was a massive failure on all but the final Secret Service action (when they killed the sniper who fired the shots). I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about this as the weeks and months go by. The Secret Service is a troubled agency. If it’s not botched protection efforts it’s cocaine in the White House or hookers in Colombia. It’s almost as if they need to shut that agency down and start over. I hope they get it right soon. I would have written and posted this blog sooner, but like most Americans, I’ve been glued to the television as updated info on the assassination attempt rolled in.
So to get back to this blog, I am very pleased with my Walker’s performance, and I am more than a little pleased with my performance, too. I’m hooked on the cap and ball revolver experience. For most of us in most of the United States, we can still purchase black powder guns through the mail and have them delivered to our home. Just this morning I received a cap and ball revolver sale notification from Midsouth Shooting Supplies. Don’t overlook these windows into our past. Take it from me: They are fun.
A few years ago we visited California’s Capitol and it was fun. Getting into it, though, was like getting into an airport. We had to go through a metal detector, there was a list of prohibited items, and there were police officers scattered throughout the building. The security precautions were mildly annoying (just like they are at an airport). That’s why I was surprised when we visited the Idaho Capitol. We weren’t sure which door to use, so we just walked into the first one we saw, and just like that, we were in. No metal detectors. No armed guards. Just a kicked back, we’re cool kind of atmosphere. The way it ought to be.
We saw a sign for a movie with a short film about the Capitol (the theatre was next to the gift shop). When we found it, there was a small group already seated and a nice lady named Bridgette was getting ready to lead them on a guided tour. Bridgette invited us to join the group, and we did.
We walked down the hall and found ourselves beneath the Capitol dome. That’s an American flag hanging from it. The mosaic you see in the lead photo for this blog is directly beneath the Capitol dome. It’s comprised of approximately 10,000 pieces.
Our first stop was the financial management room. Bridgette explained it’s where different elements of the Idaho state government made their case for annual funding to a group of four state officials.
Here’s another photo of the Capitol dome taken at a different angle to show more of the US flag.
Bridgette led us to the Governor’s office. She had to enter the staff’s administration area for permission to bring our group in. It was an interesting place to see. Bridgette explained that this was the Governor’s ceremonial office. The Governor uses it for receiving dignitaries and holding press conferences. She told us the Governor’s working office is much smaller.
Idaho’s legislature has a House and a Senate, much like the U.S. government. Unlike the U.S. government, the Idaho Representatives and Senators serve in a part time capacity, and the state Legislature only operates for three months each year. In Idaho, the state legislators are people with real jobs (farmers, ranchers, folks who operate businesses, teachers, etc.). They are not career politicians. I like that. In fact, there’s a lot I like about Idaho. Their government is working. Idaho was clean and friendly everywhere we went. We were there for a week and we didn’t see a single homeless person, or people begging, or graffiti, or any of the other urban decay prevalent in most California cities. We could take a lesson or two from Idaho.
Bridgette next took us into the Idaho House chamber.
There are three domes above the Capitol: The large one easily visible from outside the building (the one seen from inside in the photos above), and two smaller domes. One of the two smaller domes is above the House, and the other is above the Senate.
We saw interesting statues in the Capitol. The first is a replica of a statue originally created on the island of Samothrace about 2400 years ago. France sent the replica to Idaho in 1949 as part of their program to provide a statue to each U.S. state in gratitude for our help liberating Europe in World War II.
Another statue depicted George Washington on a horse. It was hand carved out of pine in 1869 by Charles Ostner. The statue was restored and gilded in real gold in 1966.
We enjoyed our visit to the Idaho State Capitol. There’s no admission fee, it’s welcoming, and we had a good time. If you’re planning a visit, you might want to allow a couple of hours to see the Capitol. If you get on one of the guided tours (as we did), you’ll enjoy it even more.
I think it would be difficult to be a firearms enthusiast and not be a student of history. Firearms are history. And some of that history revolves around the Texas Rangers, the oldest and perhaps most legendary law enforcement group in US history. I’ve always been fascinated with the Texas Rangers, starting with their use of the very first Colt Paterson revolvers in combat, the early Captain Samuel Walker days, and the emergence of the Colt Walker black powder revolver.
Texan Ranger Captain Samuel Walker.
When I was a kid, we had a steady diet of Westerns on TV and in the movies, and the Texas Rangers figured prominently in many of those shows. I’m a Lonesome Dove fan, having read Larry McMurtry’s novels and watched the television series numerous times. Go Gus and Woodrow (but especially Gus; he carried a Colt Walker).
Robert Duvall as Gus MacCrae in Lonesome Dove, and his Colt Walker.
You would think with the Texas Rangers’ historical and often romanticized use of Colt revolvers, Colt would be all over the Texas Ranger commemorative gun business. They did so in the early 1970s with a very limited run of Single Action Army revolvers, but that was the only time.
Colt’s Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Commemorative. These guns don’t come up for sale often, and when they do, the price is stratospheric. It’s the only Texas Rangers Commemorative Colt has ever done.
The Texas Rangers commemorative mantle has been picked up by Smith and Wesson, first in 1973 for the Texas Rangers’ 150th anniversary, and again in 2023 for the 200th anniversary. These are beautiful firearms (they are art, in my opinion).
A Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Smith and Wesson Model 19.Another view of the Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Smith and Wesson Model 19.
Jumping back to 1973, Smith and Wesson offered a cased commemorative Model 19 Smith and Wesson along with a Bowie knife. A standard Model 19 cost about $150 back then (I had one); the Texas Rangers Model 19 with display case and matching Bowie knife was a whopping $250. It seems an almost trivial amount today. A standard Model 19 costs around a thousand bucks today, and the Model 19 of today is not the same gun it was in the 1970s. The older ones, as is true with many things in life, are better.
The 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver.
Fast forward to 2023, and Smith and Wesson did it again, with a Texas Rangers 200th anniversary revolver. This time it’s a highly polished N-frame, fixed sight version. The N-frame is Smith’s big gun frame used on their original .357 Magnum, the Model 27, the .45 ACP revolvers, and the .44 Magnum revolvers. You know, the Big Boy guns for us full-figured shooters.
A real beauty, these 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers Smith and Wessons are.
I’ve been perusing both of these Texas Ranger guns on the gun auction sites. I can get the 1973 version (which was based on the Model 19) for about $1500, which isn’t a bad deal considering you get a more collectible gun, the knife, and the case for not too much more than what a new Model 19 cost today. I’d shoot it, too, if I bought one. And then there’s the current Texas Rangers 200th Anniversary revolver, built on the N-frame Those are going for around $2500 or more. That a bit pricey, but maybe in 50 years $2500 will be a trivial amount. I’m a firm believer that you can’t pay too much for a gun; you just maybe bought it too early.
A lot of things are different today, and the price for either of the Smith and Wesson Texas Ranger commemoratives is just a starting point here in California. Compounding the felony on both guns is our outrageous California 11% excise tax on firearms and ammo (that little bit of silliness and government overreach went into effect this month), which gets added onto:
Our outrageous California state sales tax
The federal government’s $40 background check and ATF Form 4473 (the one that Hunter Biden was convicted of falsifying when his sweetheart deal fell apart)
The FFL dealer’s $40 transfer fee
A $75 shipping fee to get the gun to me here in left wing Utopia (i.e., the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia)
It all adds up to roughly another $700. And all that’s aggravated by the likelihood I couldn’t even get the 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers commemorative because our California Attorney General hasn’t seen fit to add it to our roster of approved handguns. Even Gomer Pyle wouldn’t know how to react to all these added government fees, but I’m guessing his reaction would be a heartfelt Gosh, or a Golly, or maybe even a Shazam! It’s almost as if California doesn’t agree with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
But that earlier Texas Rangers Smith and Wesson…the Model 19 150th Anniversary gun. It’s now over 50 years old, and that makes it an antique in California’s all-seeing and all-knowing firearms book of state regs , and antiques are exempt from the Roster of Approved Handguns limitations. I’d still have to pay all the fees described above. But it’s doable, and I’m thinking about it.
You might wonder: Are the Texas Rangers still around, and what sidearm do they carry? The answer is yes; the Texas Rangers are part of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Texas Rangers are issued a SIG 320 (a 9mm semi-auto), but they are allowed to carry their personal sidearms. Many choose to carry the 1911.
When Sue and I moved into our home some 40+ years ago, I was setting up my office when I heard a thump. It sounded like a bird flew into the window, so I looked out and sure enough, there was a rather large red-tailed hawk on my front yard with its wings spread out. The thing was huge, and I knew that if it had flown into the window, it would have broken glass, but the window was intact. I’d never seen a red-tailed hawk close up (the thing was only about 10 feet away). The way its wings were spread out led me to believe it had maybe hit the roof and was now lying there, wounded, in front of me.
I was pondering my next step when the hawk lifted one wing and peered down. It wasn’t wounded at all. It held another bird in its talons, which were tightly clenched around its neck. The hawk shook the other bird and it twitched a bit, so it put its wing down again and waited (as did I). After maybe another minute, the hawk did an instant replay, except this time the bird in its claws was motionless. The hawk released it and then, with its beak, proceeded to tear into the smaller bird’s body, taking its time and eating the internal organs. When it finished, it flew off, leaving the dead bird and a scattering of its feathers. I’ve been fascinated by birds of prey ever since, and I live in a good spot for one so afflicted. We have a family of red-tailed hawks and another family of great horned owls that nest nearby. When I ride into Baja, we get great photos of osprey eating sushi in the protected areas near Guerrero Negro. These birds are amazing, so when I was in Boise and I saw they the World Center for Birds of Prey, I was in. It’s only $10 for a senior citizen ticket. I would have paid more. The photo ops were…well, read on. You’ll see.
A Peregrine Falcon taking a sip of water.Not bad for shooting through chicken coop wiring.
The first raptor we saw was a peregrine falcon. It was the first one I’d ever seen, although I’d heard about them being in our area when I was growing up in New Jersey. They live in many regions, but I’d never encountered one before. I’m pleased with the photo; I photographed the bird through its wire cage and the wires blurred and disappeared in the image.
Next up was my old buddy, the red-tailed hawk. The lighting was much more of a challenge here, as this one was in an indoor cage with bars instead of woven wire. I had to angle myself to get the camera lens pointed between the bars.
A Red-Tailed Hawk.
We walked a little further and saw a sign for the California condor exhibit.
California Condors are huge birds, as these tracks in the sidewalk indicate. That’s my Buster Brown in the photo for a size comparison.
I had never seen one of these, other than the super cool video Mike Huber posted in one of his blogs. Mike had a surreal experience. Boise’s Birds of Prey Center breeds the California condor; they are then released in California’s Pinnacles National Park. Coming back from near extinction, they now range all over the American Southwest and down into Baja. When Mike hiked into Pinnacles National park and stopped to eat his lunch, a California condor landed just a few feet away. Lucky guy, Mike is.
Two California Condors hanging out in Boise, Idaho.Wow. These birds have a 9 1/2-foot wingspan.Believe it. I stayed back.
The Harpy eagle is an unusually photogenic raptor. They range from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. Like some of our ExNotes commenters, it started squawking up a storm when I mentioned I watch Fox News.
Who the hell is Sean Hannity?
The Ornate hawk-eagle is another large raptor. It’s from the tropical regions of Central and South America. I had never heard of this bird, nor had I ever seen one. It is beautiful. It’s another one I photographed through the bars of its cage.
An Ornate Hawk-Eagle, an appropriately named bird if ever there was one. Because the Birds of Prey Center also takes in injured birds, I thought this one was missing a leg until I processed the photo below.A great profile photo.
The Birds of Prey Center had a gyrfalcon (also known as the Arctic Falcon) that I think was the most interesting bird there. While I was photographing it, I tilted my head, and the falcon tilted his head. I then tilted my head the other way, and the falcon mimicked that, too. I started doing so repeatedly, and so did the bird. The only thing missing was the music. It was really cool.
You looking at me?I enjoyed interacting with this falcon.
The gyrfalcon lives in the Arctic. It’s the largest falcon in the world, and it’s perfectly okay living in temperatures that dip below -40 degrees.
Here’s a photo I particularly like. It’s a great horned owl. We’ve had a family of these owls nest behind our house in the past, and it was great seeing the baby owl chicks emerge from the nest for a few weeks and then finally fly away. They are large birds. One still comes around on patrol, looking for mice and other tasty treats. It wakes us up sometimes hooting away in the dark. I’ve seen these fly by and they are impressive. Their flight is absolutely silent.
These birds are amazing. They always make me hungry for potato chips.
While we were in the Birds of Prey center, a handler was there with a barred owl. It was most impressive. I asked if I could use my flash and she said the owl wouldn’t mind.
A very cooperative and photogenic Barred Owl.
So there you have it. If you ever find yourself in Boise, the World Center for Birds of Prey needs to be on your list of places to visit.
A bit more on Boise…if you are spending some time there, I’ve got a good restaurant recommendation. We were chatting up a couple of young ladies near the Lucky Peak State Park and I asked them: What’s the best Italian restaurant in Boise? Their answer was instantaneous: Luciano’s. You know what? They were right.
Janus Motorcycles issued this press release recently. “The Flying Z” is a good-looking motorcycle with an interesting story.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
###############################
July 6th, 2024
Goshen, Indiana
This spring, 66 year-old Mark Zweig—a lifelong motorcyclist, Janus Motorcycles partner, and part-time CFO for the firm, commissioned a new one-off bike for himself—a custom-built Janus Halcyon 250 dubbed “The Flying Z.”
Zweig has been a restorer, customizer, and collector of a wide range of motorcycles from the 60s and 70s for many of his years, sometimes having as many as twenty bikes at a time. And while he has always had a soft spot for smaller, lighter weight bikes, an accident in 2016 where he totalled his brand new Triumph Thruxton 1200, combined with a divorce and resulting downsizing, got him to eventually sell all of his larger bikes and narrow down his rides to a small group of small-displacement bikes including a new Janus Halcyon 250 in the year 2000.
“I just don’t ride as much as I used to, and certainly don’t need to go that far or that fast. Our founder, Richard Worsham, has dubbed that kind of riding as ‘rambling.’ Most of my riding is to and from campus (Zweig is the ‘Entrepreneur in-Residence’ at The Sam M Walton College of Business at The University of Arkansas), or on short trips in and around town. The Janus to me represents everything I want in a motorcycle. It’s incredibly beautiful, simple, reliable, ultra lightweight, and fun to ride. That’s why when I decided to have a new bike built for myself—where we could test out some new design ideas—I opted for another Halcyon 250 instead of one of our larger displacement bikes. It’s such a wonderful basic design.”
In fact, this bike is the second of Zweig’s “Flying Z’s.” The first Flying Z was a custom car—a boattailed speedster he built together with his friend and master fabricator, Mike McPherson—featuring a unique handbuilt chassis, hand-formed steel body, rumble seat, sand cast 18” wheels with knockoffs, and a straight-8 Buick engine with triple carbs. “That thing looked like it came from the same era as our Halcyon,” Zweig said.
Janus Motorcycles has made its marque and established a cult like following in the motorcycle world by building unique bikes to customer order, one at a time. Their bikes come in a huge range of colors and styles, with all kinds of options for hand pinstriping, leather seats and bags, and much, much more. But Zweig’s Halcyon Flying Z takes things a step farther and has some unique features not found on any other factory-direct Halcyon 250s.
“Our basic Halcyon 250 looks like a bike that could have come out of the 1920s,” Zweig said. “So I wanted to see what we could do by creating a bike that looked like the natural evolution of that one and that would have been built in the 1930s or 40s,” he added.
“One of the coolest aspects of The Flying Z is its set of uniquely flared and deeply skirted fenders making it more aerodynamic. I have been wanting to see what one of our bikes would look like with some fenders like these for the last couple years, and our master fender builder Brent Lehman, along with the design guidance from our founder and design lead, Richard Worsham, made it happen.”
The bike also has a one-off color scheme, with the frame and most other parts color-matched to the RAL 5024 powder-coated “Cavalry Blue” body work. The large “Janus” script on the tank sides was laid out by the design team and painted by lead pinstriper, Kelly Borden, as well as the cream-colored “Flying Z” script and logo on the bike’s black airbox. It has hand-painted dual silver pinstripes on the tank and fenders, along with silver pinstriped black wheel rims.
The bike also features a sandcast Flying Z fender ornament, based on the original Flying Z hood ornament, created by Zweig’s friend—famed Arkansas sculptor, Eugene Sargent. “Sargent made the fender ornament so it bridges the front fender brace and didn’t require any special mounting hardware,” Zweig said. The bike also features other bespoke polished components.
Topping off the build is a custom engraved fuel cap for its hand formed aluminum tank, replete with a “Flying Z” logo.
“I cannot wait to see the public reaction to the new Janus Flying Z,” Zweig said. “My old Janus draws a crowd every time I park it, and I expect this one will be even more attention-grabbing,” he added with a smile.
For more info, contact Grant Longenbaugh – grant@janusmotorcycles.com
I love Idaho and the Boise area, and no story about this part of the country would be complete without mentioning at least one of the motorcycle rides out of town. A short and easy one is the run along Idaho Highway 21 to Lucky Peak State Park.
It’s easy: Just grab Interstate 84 east out of Boise and then Highway 21 north. You’ll be running alongside the Boise River up to Lucky Peak. It only takes about 10 minutes to get up to Luck Peak State Park if you are in a car or on a motorcycle. If you’re into bicycling (I am), it’s about a 30-minute ride on the Boise River Greenbelt, a dedicated bike lane that parallels Highway 21 along the river. The bike lane is protected from traffic by a concrete barrier. I didn’t have a bicycle on this Boise trip, but I found myself wishing I did. It looked like a great bicycle ride.
Highway 21’s north and south lanes are separated, and the northbound lanes up to Lucky Peak State Park don’t have good places to pull off and grab photos. For that reason, most of my on=the-road pictures were taken on our ride back to Boise, including this one of a sign for the Diversion Dam.
You get a great look at the Boise River’s Diversion Dam heading to Lucky Peak, but like I said above, there’s no place to pull off for a photo. On the way back, you see the sign in the above photo, but you can’t see the Dam from there. It provides water for Idaho’s agricultural canal system and it also generates electricity. The company that built it in 1909 took a financial bath on the project, but the dam didn’t give a damn. It’s well over a hundred years old and it’s been doing its job well the entire time.
The Lucky Peak State Park is a multi-use park. You can swim in its freshwater beach, there are a couple of boat launch ramps, we met people there for kayaking, you can rent watercraft, you can fish, or you can just hang out and take pictures (which is what we did).
There are two dams in this area. The first is the Diversion Dam mentioned above; the second is a much larger Army Corps of Engineers Dam that forms Lucky Peak Lake.
The ride back had places along Highway 21 to pull over and grab a photo or two, which is what we did. There’s a lot to see and do in the Boise area and in Idaho, and there’s more coming up here on ExNotes about that. Stay tuned, my friends.
No matter how much I scrub a bore with patches and solvent, I can’t get all the copper fouling out. For that, I need to turn to a bore brush, and the general rule of thumb seems to be one complete back and forth stroke for each round fired. 50 rounds fired (which I sometimes will do), and it’s 50 back and forth strokes with a bore brush. The copper literally has to be scraped out of the barrel.
The problem with this, of course, is that a new bore brush takes a lot of force to drive through the bore, and in doing so, the cleaning rod I’m pushing it with flexes if it is not supported while the bore brush is in the bore. That can cause the rod to bear on the chamber entrance or the leade in the chamber, and that can damage the chamber.
The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit is a contraption that allows you to protect a bolt action rifle’s chamber from the cleaning rod. An added benefit is that it prevents solvent or oil from dripping into the action. The concept is good; the execution is slightly flawed for some firearms in my opinion. That said, I’ll continue to use it on my bolt action rifles.
The pieces include a tube, an end piece with a slot for adding solvent, a sleeve that includes a combination bolt/set screw, an optional bore guide for an AR-15, and three different rubber funnels (for lack of a better word) based on the caliber.
In the photo above, the bore funnel is the red rubber piece on the left end of tube. Its purpose is to align the tube to the barrel. The two red rubber pieces above the tube in the photo above are for different size bores. The brass piece above the tube is the combination set screw/bolt (its use will become clear in another photo below). The stubby black at the top right of the photo above is the AR-15 chamber adaptor. The red rubber piece on the right in the photo above is guide that guides the cleaning rod into the tube. You’ll notice an elliptical cutout in it. The elliptical cutout’s purpose is to allow you to add solvent or oil to the cleaning patch at that point. The idea is to not insert a cleaning rod into the rifle with a solvent or oil soaked patch. This is to prevent the solvent or oil from dripping into the action as the cleaning rod and patch are inserted into the gun.
The first is that the red rubber guide fits into the chamber will not withdraw from the action when the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit is pulled out. The rubber chamber guide hangs up on the rear of the action. It’s not a big deal. I just pulled on the tube, the guide falls off, and I reinstalled it. I only needed to do this when I was finished using the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit and I wanted to remove the thing.
The feature that allows you to add solvent through a port in the rear red rubber guide is something I didn’t need for applying the solvent. I just dipped the cleaning rod tip (with patch) into the solvent bottle and ran it through the bore. The same is true with the oiled patch after I’m done cleaning. That extra port solves a solvent or oil application problem that doesn’t exist. But it sure came in handy when I encountered the next problem.
The Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit doesn’t work with a long action and a 26-inch barrel as the kit is configured. I tried working a new bore brush through my .30 06 Mark V Weatherby, and the cleaning rod handle butted up against the rubber guide at the Tipton bore guide’s rear end with the tip of the bore brush just showing at the end of the muzzle. That was a real “uh oh” moment. There’s no way to back the bore brush out (especially when the brush is new). The bore brush, the bore brush rod, and the Tipton were locked in place. That’s when the opening in the rear guide came in handy. I was able to grasp the cleaning rod with a pair of needlenosed pliers and turn it about an eighth of a turn at a time (my cleaning rod handle allows the rod to rotate, a feature intended to prevent the cleaning rod from unscrewing). Then I’d release the pliers’ grip, move it around the section of cleaning rod visible through the red rubber rear guide, and turn the rod another eighth of a turn. I did this for several minutes until I could get the rod unscrewed from the bore brush, and after that, I put an extension on the rod. It was a real pan in the ass. I’ll cut the length of the Tipton bore guide down to prevent this from occurring again. I feel the Tipton’s bore guide instructions should have a warning about this.
The above notwithstanding, I think the Tipton Universal Bore Guide Kit is still a good purchase. It seems to work well, and it prevents cleaning rod flex when running a tight-fitting bore brush through a rifle barrel, so it does what I want it to do. I paid $13.01 for mine when I bought it on Amazon. For $13, it’s a decent deal.
Two of the largest motorcycle companies in China are Zongshen and Loncin. I recently learned that Zongshen became the major shareholder of Loncin, turning Zongshen into the largest of the motorcycle companies in China. I asked my contact at Zongshen if he could tell me more about this, and he did.
Hi Joe:
On July 3rd, Zonsen Power, a listed company under Zongshen Group, announced official news. Here are the details:
Zonsen Power announced that its associate company intends to invest 3.35 billion yuan (CNY) to acquire a 24.55% stake in Loncin. Upon the completion of the transaction, Zonsen will become the largest shareholder and the actual controller of Loncin.
In fact, before this acquisition, Loncin Group had been trapped deeply a debt crisis due to heavy losses in its real estate business, leading to significant debts in 13 of its subsidiaries.
In previous years, Loncin had been trying hardly to resolve this issue, and some companies proposed acquiring shares in Loncin, but ultimately, none succeeded.
The Chongqing court ruled that Loncin Group must resolve this debt issue before August 2024, or the company will be auctioned. This acquisition of Loncin by Zonsen is likely the result of coordination by the Chongqing government.
As the previous acquisition of Lifan by Geely Automobile was not successful. Geely, a powerful automotive enterprise in China that is the largest shareholder of Daimler and once acquired 100% shares of Volvo, but had no intention of developing the motorcycle industry by acquiring Lifan. Instead, it aimed to obtain Lifan’s electric vehicle production license. However, after the acquisition, Geely did not invest much in the motorcycle sector, causing Lifan to decline significantly, which greatly displeased the local government.
Although Loncin’s real estate business has suffered heavy losses, its motorcycle business is still operating well. Therefore, the local government is unwilling to let Loncin suffer the same fate as Lifan, so it coordinated with Zonsen to acquire a majority stake in Loncin, and state-owned assets also invested in Loncin.
Whether Zongshen and Loncin’s businesses will be merged is yet to be announced officially, but most people believe that Loncin will maintain its current structure and business, and there will still be competition between the two companies in the same industry.
Thanks!
These are interesting developments. In case you were wondering, Zonsen is the name by which what we knew as Zongshen now wishes to be called. Another bit of information: 3.35 billion Chinese Yuan is the equivalent of approximately 461 million US dollars. I first visited Zongshen more than a decade ago, and the company impressed me greatly.
