Wild Wyoming

Gone are the days of traffic jams and look-alike street corners plagued with identical Walgreens and CVS stores. Pronghorn counting and prairie dog dodging have become my new driving entertainment. I have happily traded billboards screaming "We bare all" and "Life begins at conception" for more tasteful signs like "Elevation 2 miles above sea level" and "Now crossing the Continental Divide".

Laramie, Wyoming has very little urban sprawl. Yes, there is a Wal-Mart, but even it has pretty views. Many roads simply end with no more warning than a white and orange wooden barrier indicating that it may be wise to apply the brakes. I'm not sure how excited I am about Outlaw Days, Jamborees and Rodeos, but then, festivals were never my thing to begin with. As long as no one forces me into a cowboy hat or makes me eat "barbeque", I can coexist peacefully with the country themes of local towns.

Laramie is pretty with its unique sandstone university, old west downtown and quiet tree-lined streets, but I find the beauty of Wyoming centered in its wilderness. Sparsely populated, it takes mere minutes to be in the midst of crazy rock formations, mountain lakes or scrubby pastures full of cattle and antelope. Colorado and its mountain vistas in places such as Rocky Mountain National Park are an hour or two away by car. I feel lucky to be so near such magnificent beauty.

I am excited by the variety of wildlife seen from the road and hiking trails. In ten days of exploring I've already seen more deer, elk, antelope and prairie dogs than I can count, not to mention big horn sheep and marmots. Okay, so I've also found mosquitos and ticks trying to attach themselves vampire-like to my skin, but I will put up with a few pests for experiences such as accidentally flushing a baby pronghorn from a brush thicket on a hike. We were both quite startled, but in the end I felt bad for scaring the poor little thing. I apologized, of course, but I'm not sure that made much of a difference. In the end, though, when confronted with nature I always find that politeness counts. I like to thank trees for their help with balancing over snow patches and streams. I regularly pat rocks in gratitude for providing a seat or acting as a step stool. "Please don't eat me Mr. Mountain Lion, good kitty" has also kept me safe thus far.

I am excited to be a Wyomingite. On a recent trip to a Laramie outdoor adventure store for some topo-maps, the clerk asked, "Local or tourist?"

I'm a local!