If you happen to be near Helena, Montana, here's an option for an outing you probably can't find in your own back yard. I wouldn't have known about it myself if I hadn't picked up Section D of today's The Montana Standard this morning while staying at my friend's house in Butte.

The article on The Last Chance Ranch caught my attention. The ranch offers an old-fashioned wagon ride through the forest to dinner in one of two tipis. The dinner, a home-style cooked prime rib feast, includes a performance by Bruce Anfinson who is well known in these parts as the Charlie Russell of music. Charlie Russell was a western style artist whose work now fetches thousands of thousands of dollars. I mean thousands.

Anfinson says that he aims to give people a slice of the real Montana that he loves. Songs reflect Montana history and culinary traditions. Expect huckleberries. The ranch, now owned by Anfinson, is 102 years old, and according to the article, this is a well-worth it western experience.

Here's the Web site link for the ranch with info about how to register for the dinner.

It seems that we have been averaging about one crazy passenger a week lately. And those are just the ones who make it into the press!

You typically read about the in-flight drunkards, angry folks, and people with out-of-control children. But I can't remember the last time we had a 'misbehaving nudist' story.

The AP reports that an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles was diverted to Oklahoma City yesterday after a passenger emerged from the bathroom naked. He then tried to open an emergency exit door before being subdued by other passengers, specifically the members (no pun intended) of a professional soccer team.

Members of the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer (and others on the plane) saw the erratic passenger near an exit door, grabbed him, and placed tie wraps on the man.

American Flight 725, a Boeing 757, arrived in Oklahoma City at 1:35 p.m. CDT, and said nudist was taken into custody in Oklahoma City and placed under psychiatric evaluation.

Makes you wonder what he was doing in the bathroom naked. Some sort of mile-high club self-initiation?

The airplanes flying in and out of Fresno Yosemite International Airport might still be running on traditional fuel, but the airport itself will be saving $13 million in energy costs over the next 20 years thanks to solar power. Yesterday welcomed the dedication of the new solar array which will provide 40% of the day-to-day lighting, air conditioning, controls and towers of the airport.

Given that the Fresno airport is the gateway to the famed Yosemite National Park, taking steps to be more environmentally friendly makes sense. So if your looking to green your next trip to California, fly into Fresno and be happy that the airport lights are partly fueled by the outdoor sun.

[Via Treehugger]

South Carolina is outraged over an advertisement campaign by Amro Worldwide, a UK specialist in gay and lesbian travel, which labeled the Palmetto State "so gay" in a series of posters throughout the London Underground.

Looking to boost its profile among the UK's gay and lesbian community, Amro devised its 'so gay' campaign nearly a year ago and reached out to various U.S. tourism boards last October to see if they would participate.

Shortly thereafter, Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. confirmed their participation. Last November, South Carolina jumped on board.

The campaign debuted at Underground stations in Leicester Square and Covent Garden during London's recent Gay Pride Week celebrations. For South Carolina, the posters touted the state's gay beaches and Civil War-era plantations.

Apparently, it seems that South Carolina tourism officials didn't really understand what they was agreeing to. At first, top officials said the campaign sent a positive message to gay travelers. But as outrage increased, they now say they knew nothing about the campaign and are disavowing participation, according to MSNBC.com, refusing to pay the campaign's promoter, Out Now, the $5,000 fee for the posters.

The low ranking official in the state's department of parks, recreation and tourism department who got the state involved with the campaign in the first place has resigned.

Oran Smith, the president of a South Carolina conservative activist group, tells MSNBC.com: "I think with today's economy, we have to be really smart with our tourism dollars, and South Carolina's market, very clearly, is the family-friendly market. So if we want to spend our dollars in a way that's wise, we need to go after our market, and our market is families."

Amro Worldwide wants to know what all the fuss is about. The view among many in the gay and lesbian community is that being 'so gay' is not the putdown it perhaps once was, but rather a positive thing, the company says.

Just don't expect Main Street South Carolinians to agree. One Charleston resident who spoke to MSNBC.com says, "We're so gay? Nah. Wrong state. Go to California."

It's worth noting that the other U.S. destinations involved in the campaign are not complaining.

I hesitate to make snakes on a plane jokes because they're bad and overused, but in this case I'm going to have to do it once again. What just might be worse than snakes on a plane? Snakes in your hotel room. Fairfax City police said that they found a total of 17 exotic snakes in the room of the Hy-Way Motel last night near Fairfax Circle, VA. 12 of those snakes happened to be poisonous.

The hotel management was alerted to the snake issue because of the report of a foul odor coming from said room; two of the snakes had died which led to the smell. The snakes are believed to belong to an Arlington County man who kept as many as 100 exotic snakes in his home until recently. I think the important question here is: why did the snakes need a getaway at a cheap roadside hotel?

This gives us just another reason as to why it's important to fully investigate your hotel room (which can harbor some nasty things) before committing to stay in it for the night.

Think that's weird? What strange things have been found on planes?

Click the image to read the bizarre story...

Monolingual, white tennis shoes, an unbecoming outfit and an ugly fanny pack: my stereotypical image of an American tourist. But apparently Americans don't win the number one spot for the world's most obnoxious tourists. In Europe, that special place is held for the French, reports Time Magazine.

According to an international survey conducted for Expedia.fr, the French are in fact considered to be overall the worst of the worst of tourists. Employees in 4,000 hotels in Germany, the U.K., Italy, France, Canada and the U.S. were asked to rank their clients on different levels ranging from willingness to speak the local language to discretion and elegance, and French travelers did not fare well.

France fell behind India and China as providing the world with the worst tourists. And the stereotypically obnoxious American tourist? Out of 21 countries, with the most liked at the top, the US got an impressive 11th place. Why is that? Among other reasons, despite language faults, Americans get the top spot for trying to speak local languages the most. Quelle surprise.

The TSA blog: I read it so you don't have to.

Yesterday I highlighted some fun bits from the Q&A over at the TSA blog about the new ID requirements for flying. As promised, here are some entertaining and insightful posts from the comments following that exchange.

• One commenter wonders whether the "No Fly List" isn't more trouble than it's worth: "What kind of threat do they pose if they have already been screened for weapons? They going to punch a hole in the plane?"
• Chris (the TSA blogger) writes in the comments that his original snark was merely an attempt "to bring some levity to a long drawn-out discussion of a serious matter while providing some insight into why we think ID is important." Another commenter responds: "Christopher, while I understand your intent, you did not succed at either of your goals. Address the hard queston with some real answers, let Leno and Letterman handle the comedy."

Questions to ponder next time you're waiting to hand over your ID at the airport:

• "Why is a guy who says he lost his ID less dangerous than a guy who says he prefers not to show his ID?"
• "I show up a the airport and say I forgot my ID, because I have memory loss. You ask me questions I can´t answer because I have memory loss. Can I fly?"
• "Let´s say I turn up at an airport and say I forgot my ID, and that my name is John Smith. There are probably a few thousand John Smiths. How will you 'establish my identity'?"

Drumroll, please. CalorieLab United States of Obesity rankings published their 2008 results.

Mississippi has claimed the title of fattest state for the third consecutive year. Colorado repeats as the leanest, according to their new analysis.

Here are some changes from last year:

• West Virginia passed Alabama to become the second fattest state
• Hawaii entered the rankings for the first time as the second leanest state (they had not collected data previously)
• DC actually got slimmer; the only state to do so (obesity dropped 0.1%)
• Delaware's obesity is increasing at a faster pace than any other state, while California's rankings have dropped at a faster pace than any other state

Grant reported a couple weeks ago on the TSA's new ID requirement for airline passengers. In case you missed it, last week the snark-tastic security whiz named Christopher over at the TSA's Evolution of Security blog (sort of) answered your questions about the new rule. Here are some highlights from the Q&A:

Q: So it only took 48 hours before the first reported instance of a question about political affiliation being required [to verify identitiy after a passenger forget his ID]. I'll make two predictions: 1) The TSA employees who did this will never be reprimanded in any serious manner; the worst thing they will face will be some additional "training".

A. Nostranonymous, I think Kip [Hawley, TSA's head honcho] was pretty clear when he wrote, "It's unequivocally not our policy to use political, religious, or other sensitive personal topics as identity validation. If it happened, it was wrong and will not be repeated."

The person that did this made a mistake and has been corrected. Hope you never make a mistake at your job.

[The person has been corrected? If that's not accountability, what is? Also, "hope you never make a mistake at your job"? What the hell kind of a statement is that? If an employee in any other job responded in such a flippant way to a customer complaint, you can be sure he'd be "corrected" by his boss real quick.]

Q: If requiring ID is truly instrumental in keeping the flying public safe, why did it take the TSA until June of 2008 to institute that policy?

A: Good question. We've been increasing layers of security for years and now that TSA officers check documents at every airport in the country, we've effectively moved the issue and are trying to address this threat.

[Wait, what? What does that mean?]

Oh boy, oh boy. Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a family with an autistic child being booted off an American eagle flight for "out-of control" behavior.

Today, another "unruly family" hit the news.

A woman, her 5-month-pregnant sister and four kids were kicked off a flight after they were misbehaving on a Southwest Airlines flight to Phoenix. As they were getting off the plane at Phoenix, airport police were already waiting for them and prevented them from boarding their connection to Seattle, CNN reports.

You can watch the video here. Yeah, emotions definitely ran high here. Glad I wasn't on that flight!

The interesting thing is that this family, like the one from two weeks ago, also traveled with an autistic child. On top of that, they had one child with cerebral palsy. It seems to me that airlines need to better prepare for more and more families traveling with special-needs children. (And other passengers need to start realizing that in times of cheap mass air travel, there is no divine right to a quiet flight. Hmm, I'm sure that will go over well.)

What strange things have been found on planes?

Click the image to read the bizarre story...