Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/68594
and had lost considerable weight. Finnell and two friends flew from Alaska to Russia. "I didn't feel good," he says. "We helicoptered from Kamchatka to a base camp in a really rural area. We had to pack up into the mountains every day and then back down. My two friends each got a sheep, but I hadn't. I would have been fine if I hadn't been sick. My friends were worried, saying 'you don't look too good.'" But Finnell, sick, physically depleted and in a strange country a long way from home, did get his ram and went home to recover and tend to his fledgling business. "Looking back, I had a good time with my friends, but it was not my most memorable hunt," he says with commendable understatement. That determination goes a long way to explain why Marco Polo Outfitters has thrived even through an economic meltdown. Today, Marco Polo is a mini- museum of big game hunting. Next to the gun display room is an enormous American bison and a brown bear, both shot by Finnell. Flanking the doorway is the legacy of two 100-pound elephant tusks from an elephant taken by Carter's father in Kenya in 1973. Along with these and many other trophies is the full-body mount of a Marco Polo ram that lent its name to the business. It's an awesome trophy and a fitting centerpiece to a business that doesn't know how to quit – just like its owner. Note: Joel Vance is the author of Down Home Missouri (When Girls Were Scary and Basketball Was King) ($25), Tails I Lose ($25), Grandma and the Buck Deer ($12 softcover), Autumn Shadows (limited edition outdoor ghost stories $45), and Billy Barnstorm the Birch Lake Bomber ($15.95 softcover) All are available from Cedar Glade Press, Box 1664, Jefferson City MO 65102. Add $3 per book for S/H or order from www.joelvance.com. SPOR TIN G CL ASSICS 104