Flying to Wyoming tomorrow. Never been there. Been wondering about the place, along with several U.S. states I’ve never seen, for decades.
What do people do in Wyoming? Do they have flat-screen TVs? Instead of watching sports on TV at night, do they go out to the local saloons in cowboy hats and cowboy boots and drink whiskey for a few hours? During the day do they heave hay? Are they addicted to their smartphones?
If you multiply 61 years which is how old I am by 365 days that equals 22,265 days I have lived in America that I have not spent in Wyoming. For the first 20 years or so of my life, I didn’t care about ever going to Wyoming, because I didn’t really care about much of anything besides basketball, but when I was 22 I drove across the country but didn’t enter Wyoming and found out there’s a whole lot of interesting things to see out there in the US of A.
I found out New Mexico looks nothing like Bethesda, Maryland where I grew up. Massive chocolate brown mountains and no people.
I learned driving up Colorado mountain cliffs can wear out your car; it doesn’t want to climb those mountains just like people don’t because the mountains are steep and extend for miles.
When I get to Wyoming I wonder if I’ll see a buffalo a few miles outside the airport. Or maybe 10 or 28 buffalos, standing around, hanging out, not really too fazed by my being there no doubt because they don’t know me and don’t care about me and why should they?
Why isn’t Wyoming called Buffalo and Buffalo New York called some popular animal from that area? I suspect there aren’t nearly as many buffalo in Buffalo as in Wyoming but I could be wrong.
One thing I am sure about is I’m not going to read anything about Wyoming beyond maybe a Wikipedia page about it because when I’m on vacation I don’t like to learn. I’m like Crash Davis Costner at the end of “Bull Durham” when he finally bags baseball and goes over to Annie Savoy’s house and he tells her he just “wants to be.”
In Wyoming, I just want to be. Maybe there will be big mountains, maybe some cowboys, hopefully, a Wendy’s so I can order a large Orange Dreamsicle Frosty because they remind me of those creamsicles the Popsicle Man used to sell in his truck on summer nights in our neighborhood. Orange on the outside, vanilla in the middle.
They say wherever you go people are pretty much the same. I’m not so sure about that. I bet there are plenty of people out there who see the world and have opinions that have never entered my mind.
While out there I’m going to be roaming around Idaho hunting down potato farms, and if I see one and a farmer out there I would sure like to ask him if those are the potatoes that end up in Mcdonald’s French Fries that are the best in the world, and he’ll probably say he’s not sure but that will be OK because I’ll have plenty of other questions for him namely how it came to be that Idaho is the epicenter of all things potatoes and how come, if we’re all being honest, potatoes taste better than all other vegetables and truthfully almost all other foods except steaks and chili dogs.
I don’t know, maybe I won’t see much of anything in Idaho but that will be stimulating to me. I like nothingness, the open plains where there is basically nothing to see or do because that’s the kind of place that is quiet and uncomplicated and isn’t as stressful as 54th Street in Manhattan.
After conquering Idaho, I’m going to cruise on up to Montana to see if Joe Montana is there or Tony Montana or if there is anything to see there like open fields and terrain with nothing scenic which will energize me, the openness, the vastness, the utter desolation and equanimity found out there across the landscape of Montana.
Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana are three states I’ve always wanted to go see but have never gotten around to doing until tomorrow and through next week and I have got to let you know in advance I may be moved to write a blog or two about whatever strikes me which might be that Caitlin Clark’s first WNBA game is May 14th and we should all watch that.
A chance of a lifetime now coming to fruition in 24 hours, a fantasy becoming reality, a mystery being untangled. The American West is intriguing and much more important for me to see than, say, China, Japan, Spain, Paris, New Delhi, Westminster Abbey, or South Korea. To go to those places you need a passport and all sorts of bureaucratic obstacles have to be climbed over plus I can’t stand the whole not being able to speak the language thing because it takes longer to order food.
Where I’m going the locals may be wearing cowboy hats but I’m pretty sure if I ask them where the closest Wendy’s is they’ll at least be able to understand my question even if they think it’s an odd thing to be asking them which won’t matter because we won’t ever see each other again.
Western states in America, get ready. Western States in America, this is your chance to show me what you’ve got which I feel sure will be more naturally intoxicating than I have ever imagined.
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