This And that

Andreas Paepcke

Jul 11, 2026

This and That In and Before West Yellowstone
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The Beauty of Paper Maps

Just a hodgpodge of items that didn't fit anywhere. Time after time, except for the admittedly important search function, you can't beat maps for planning.

Maps Hi Rez
Hi rez large format
Folds well
Folds to flat format
Summarized version
Easily summarized
Can't Beat Physical Maps for Planning

Runnaway Trucks

You see them in mountainous areas: road features for runaway trucks. That must be one of the harrowing experiences!
***Description***
Far view of a typical runaway truck 'fix'
Simple truck runaway near view
Near view: imagine steering your
18 wheeler onto this gravel strip
Simple version of runaway truck

There are other, newer ones I discovered:

Catchnet far
Somehow spring loaded, rather than
gravity based for braking.
Catchnet close
One of the catchnet gates. Not sure
how this gate, or even many of them would help.

That's a Hotel Coke Supply Lobby

Coke supply Hampton Inn
Lobby of Hampton Inn---No 'Sorry, Machine Empty'

When in Montana...

Seeing the sign: "Shoot a real machine gun", being confined to the California gun desert, how could I resist. Recommendations from trip advisor:

Great! Brought our 5 and 8 year old, they were patient and great with the kids. The whole family had a great time. Adults and kids!
and
Awesome time shooting Great time! Loved shooting. Inshallah was a great instructor, even though I have experience shooting. Would def recommend

Gun store
How can I resist?
Guns I picked
The wall was covered with mounted full- and semi autos
$55 for each pick. These were my two choices.
***Description***
Instructor Sam: his last day
before college: Fish and Wildlife.
Filling Two Voids: a Henry, and an Auto

I picked a Henry Repeating Rifle, and an M4A1. Why?

Like many German boys, I read all 72 novels by Karl May. Particulary novels about the wise Apache chief Winnetou, and his German blood brother Old Shatterhand. I knew that in the third volume, Winnetou III, the chief was killed. I at first refused to see the corresponding movie, after loving the first two. My mother, however, explained that we cannot cherry pick by refusing to acknowledge grief.

I went to see the film, to come home for dinner, with my plate decorated in black cloth.

Old Shatterhand carried a prized "Henry Stutzen," which gave him enormous advantage over his vile enemies. Of course, he used his Henry sparingly, only in the service of justice.

That explains the Henry choice. I've always been curious about what modern special forces rifles feel like. Both in semi, and auto mode. The M4A1 is the obvious choice.

Shooting a Henry
The Henry was smooth shooting
Shooting the M4A1
M4A1: lighter than I thought.
Very handy optical sight with red dot on
target.
Two results
Henry (left image): good grouping.
M4A1: good grouping till I switched to full auto
See the marked strays outside the cluster. The
nice group was in semi mode.
Reasonable groupings center mass,
until switch to full auto on the M4A1.
After that: no control.

Guns and Politics
Definitely Not Seen in California

After I was done I carried the target sheets folded with their blank side up. When I bought ice cream, the pretty Ukrainian waitress recognized the sheets just from their format.

Stretching our her hand:

Oh, you went shooting! Can I see?

She unfolded the targets and made highly appreciative noises.

You are good!

What more could a man want?!