Feeling Homesick

 Having taken my youngest to college and dumped him out  400 miles from home, and left him there to have his own adventure, I find myself missing him.  I also find myself missing my own Mom and Dad and Brothers and the State of Wyoming which I left behind at the age of 21, yes 27 years ago.

 My husband's family is from Newcastle, on the North East side of WY where the Black Hills, Devil's Tower, Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore are easy drives for an afternoon of exploration and where coal trains rocket through repeatedly each day.

Newcastle, WY

Custer, SD

Where we worked the summer we got married

Evan's plunge

 There is a lot to miss about Wyoming.  The scenery is diverse, the wildlife is amazing and the people are wonderful.  I am so grateful to be from Wyoming.  But I don't miss the extremes in weather, or the constant wind (Oh yeah, that's because the wind never stops gusting here either.)

Buffalo Bill Dam

 I love the Buffalo Bill Dam, and the Cody Night Rodeo and the area around where I grew up too.  Cody has Yellowstone and the Beartooths and the hot pools of Thermopolis and the spectacular Bighorns and Horseshoe Bend to enjoy.

TeePee pool in Thermopolis

Heart Mountain

Cody, WY

On Chief Joseph Highway to Beartooths

Mom and me

 But of course what I miss the most is my family, and one brother now lives in Virginia, and my cousins have moved away and my dad has been dead since 1997.  Only Mom and my brother Lance still live there.  And a few precious school friends.  And home is here in the solar-free and ginger approved Redwood coastal fog belt.

My Brother, Lance

 But I would not be who I am without the Rocky Mountains having formed me.  Without the smell of sulfur still permeating my hair and lungs from the hot springs, without knowing what it feels like to stumble into a bull buffalo in the dark or find a bear sharing your campsite.

 Without the Cody view of Heart Mountain, not the internment Camp side, painted eternally on the inside of my eyelids.

The old Bronze Boot

Heart Mountain

Tower Falls, Yellowstone

Wherever else I have traveled, wherever else I still may go, Wyoming defines me and calls to me and laughs at me when I admit I may no longer be tough enough to endure the smokey summers and the freezing blizzards.  When My Great-Grandparents married in 1892 and drove their stage from Hot Springs, South Dakota and came to help Buffalo Bill establish a town with his name on it, They may not have realized that they were deciding right then who I would become, but they were.