Several years ago I came across a delightful 2009 essay by a Cleveland sports writer, Tony Pluto, in which he described a trip into southeastern Wyoming the day prior to his coverage of a Browns-Bronco game in Denver. His intent and his writing style were different from mine, so I have simply borrowed the elements from his story that match my observations and which evoke fond memories of our own Wyoming experiences.
For a bit of background about Wyoming, many would say that it is still an untamed land, where the mountains are ever on the horizon and the prairies and grasslands are vast. Mr. Pluto said, “I have been to Wyoming at least a dozen times. On each visit, I think how the land is not tamed by man. Some mountains are too high, some rivers too wild, some storms too fierce.” Good description!
Nearly half of Wyoming is federally-owned. Cattle ranching is big, and cowboys don’t dress like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Mineral extraction and tourism are the primary sources of revenue. There are boom towns like the coal city of Gillette, as well as the once-boom-town-now-ghost town, Jeffrey City, built on uranium mining wealth. Wyoming is a mix of ranchers and billionaires, and the first state to grant women the right to vote. Don’t get the idea, though, that the Equal Rights Amendment is smiled upon in Wyoming; voting women in Wyoming were the wives of voting ranchers.
The climate is semi-arid, and the forever winds can and do overturn tractor trailers. Big snow fences are common along strategic roadside sites and Union Pacific railways, and highway gates are used to close roads prior to blizzards.
Mr. Pluto described driving down roads under high skies and huge clouds that seemed to rise up to the heavens. He drove down roads through miles of open “pastures", roads where his cellphone was long out of range.
Any Verizon towers out here?
Mr. Pluto drove down roads where he saw more pronghorn antelope than cars and people. Yep! There are more antelope than people in Wyoming.
And there are loners too! These critters can hit 55 mph in a dead run. Speculation is that they evolved the speed to elude the now-extinct North American cheetah. However, they are not true antelope; instead, they are related to giraffes. Kinda like Spanish moss and pineapples being relatives.
Tony described driving Wyoming Highway 130 into the Snowy (Range) Mountains without mentioning this piece of history, a marker for the Overland Trail where pioneers trekked this open space between the years 1862 to 1868. The wagon ruts were still present a hundred years afterward. Another cement post marker can be seen immediately to the right of the dark fence post and slightly below the horizon. Brave, crazy or desperate? Who knows? Twenty miles a day through the territory of people who wanted to kill them. Hardships unimaginable to us!
A bit further along Highway 130 there is the Centennial Valley and the Snowy Range Mountains in the distance. The green area in the left side of the image hides the Little Laramie River which ultimately ends up in the Missouri River system. We had a similar view of the Snowy Range every morning from our third floor apartment in Laramie in 1967-68.
The Snowy Range Road is opened sometime around Memorial Day after the winter snows have been cleared, and June and July visitors can discover a plethora of lakes, small streams and wild flowers such as this turk’s cap.
I mentioned in a previous entry that I had photographed white columbines. Here is an example of that delicate beauty!
Finally, there is Medicine Bow Peak, elevation 12,014 feet, and Lake Marie. I’ve hiked around this peak but never to the top. Our daughter, Mary Beth and her two boys have achieved that honour though. A tragedy occurred here on October 6, 1955 when United Airlines Flight 409 crashed into the face of the peak, killing all 66 people aboard. Details in Wikipedia!
The Pluto essay skipped from his mention of Highway 130 to his spotting of a moose, omitting the peak, the flowers and the streams. As with his moose spotting, I saw this big fellow on my way down the Snowy Range, munching on the local shrubbery. Pretty they’re not, but majestic, yes. And they jump our fence in Colorado in order to eat the choke cherry twigs, leaving their markings in the driveway. Oh well, most of our Colorado neighbours have four legs, and we welcome their presence.
Mr. Pluto ends his story with the idea that his trip to Wyoming had given him a glimpse of heaven, a place that he occasionally thought about with the hope of a permanent address. Here’s a bit of news for him! Many people, especially urban folk who are accustomed to neon lights and street lamps are uncomfortable in the open, unlit spaces of Wyoming. Those whom we've accompanied into a Wyoming prairie night are too frightened of that empty space to think of it as an eternal residence. On a more practical level, a rancher's grocery trips are to buy supplies, not simply some plastic-wrapped chicken tenders. The Schwann and UPS trucks are harbingers of the outside world, and mailboxes can be miles from the ranch house. It’s that openness that drew us in, that first view of Laramie and the surrounding plains as we descended the Lincoln Highway, now I-80, in 1967. Our entire time there was an adventure, physically, intellectually and spiritually, one not easily forgotten. Tony Pluto found his view of heaven; maybe we found ours.