Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Michigan


Hunting "blinds" on the front grass to Cabela's.

I dedicate this post to all my European friends...Greg S, Red, Asterisk, Cappy, Four Dinners and more.....this is a purely American moment....
220,000 square feet of out-fitting with about 6 million visitors a year.

Many of the stuffed animals were hunted and caught by the Cabela family.



This is not only a major cultural insight and experience...isn't it interesting how the name Cabela sounds like Kabbalah?

Stagg had the Bison Sandwich and my step mom and I had the Buffalo Burgers...with DOVE chocolate drink. Dee-lish!
I recommend clicking on this photo...it's really the money shot and difficult to see when it's this small a format. You'll really be able to see how huge this place is...there were huge trout swimming in the pond/aquarium around the moose...

These are decorative pillows in the image of fishing bobbins, bullets and shot-gun shell cases. It was very very difficult to resist buying some of these puppies. We did buy a couple of things I'll post them tomorrow.
Yep...I hope The Underground Baker checks this out...it's a hunting couple for the top of a wedding cake!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

For me, the hardest part of walking around a place like that is pretending I think it's awful and horrible.

I get the same way at agricultural fairs with animals fattened up for the slaughter and posters that say "from the farm to the fork".

Vicarious slaughter is strangely alluring, no denying it.

Red said...

You see, this is the America few of us (in Europe) ever experience, because we end up going to all these cities that are in the US, but not necessarily representative of the country as a whole. New York is great, but is it a slice of the US, or is it a world apart? I wonder...

Love the hunting couple for the wedding cake, by the way. Darn, if I had known about it ten years ago...!

mister anchovy said...

Only in America would somebody think of a shotgun shell pillow. You can't make this up.

Candy Minx said...

L.M. I love agricultural fairs and auctions. My family had a ranch at one point and it was an incredible experience for me although....I am much like William Kittredge the experience on a ranch added my way of questioning to environmental issues and how we make our living...This store was really incredible...I could have spent a fortune in it on many wonderful camping outfitting products. They even had a furniture section!

Red...NYC is not even a tip of what it is like in America. Yes, part of being American and the American dream and experience is largely NYC...but I'll tell you a secret. I have a lot of Amercian friends...and before 9/11 they were more harsh on NYC than well..it was depressing. They believed it to be a scum hole lets just say. Very few people speak that way out loud since 9/11. But believe me...many many citizens do not like NYC, are afraid of it and feel it is a poor representation of the country. If you travel through the mid west and through Montana and s Texas...it is quite a different place than the news or stock market or Martha Stewart or rock stars would represent. Now listen...it's all true and part of the country...but Martha Stewart, NYC, or even liberalism is a very small segment of the population. It may be the most famous, but there is a side that "weird america" and I mean that very affectionately. It is "conservative small c"...not pretentious or materialistic or decadent. It is based on actual autonomy, on vast spaces on innovation and a sort of spiritual enterprise. Very difficult for me to explain...but if you scroll down and find my post about Cormac McCarthy and Coca-Cola...I'm getting close to it....

Mr. A aren' they terrific...which came first Oldenburg or this sensibility? I think these pillows represent what I'm trying to say to Red...about a kind of folk ancient conservative sensibility...that yes, you find in America, but you also find in hunt-gatherers...like cargo cults or the unpopular Inuit art of helicopters and snowmobiles....

rauf said...

Children grow up watching cartoons films about jungles being a friendly place where all friendly animals hang around having fun.
A forest is hardly a friendly place. Children grow up with wrong information.

Native Americans knew how to use the forest resources in right measures. Protecting one species upsets that balance, and American park rangers had bitter experience
prohibiting Native Americans from hunting. Elk population grew beyond proportions and the yosemite forest disappeared in 20 years. Then the park rangers had to poison the elks. Sometimes kindness and compassion is grossly misplaced. Killing is inevitable. Forest is a complex network. Species A survives on eating species B. And there is a perfect waste management system in the forest. Waste of species C is a resource for specied D.

I do not recommend hunting for pleasure. Eating meat is a nessesity. Humans are carnivores. Following some philosophies upsets the natural balance which we are guilty of doing.

rauf said...

Hope you are doing fine Candy

Joy Renee said...

i never know what i'm going to find when i visit you. but i can guarantee it will make me think, give me a new angle to view a familiar thing that gives me that frisson of recognition combined with wonder.

Which is why I'm passing on the Thinking Bloggers award to you. I'd be surprised if you did not already have it. But judging from your sidebar you could use another opportunity to pass it on.

participation is optional of course.

Candy Minx said...

Rauf...I am so happy to see you, it feels like forever!!! Thanks for stopping by and adding your incredibly thoughtful comments. I agree with you that we have lost touch with how "to make a living" by which I mean...how we get our food. I believe that one of the roots to religion is the reconciliation of having to eat and live by killing what we love. In so many ways...I see this huge shopping for camping and hunting as a church to that spirit. I do not like hunting for pleasure...but to eat yes. I grew up with a deer or moose hanging in our garage every fall. My sister and I used to catch crabs and salmon while we played in boats on the ocean and then bring our catch home for dinner. It was an incredibly rewarding time of my life in that aspect. Everything made sense.

Hi Joy...yes, we are always up to some kind of adventure or project around here, thanks for stopping by. I've had a difficult time getting around to everyones blogs and I feel sad about that sometimes, but I am refreshed and ready to do so many things. I appreciate hearing from you and am terribly flattered at tyour nomination for a thinking bloggers award. I will nominate some blogs okay ina couple of days. Hope your reading is awesome and busy!

* (asterisk) said...

The stuffed animals remind me of the Natural History Museum in NYC. I took loads of photos of them!

And I ate a poor-quality buffalo burger.

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