Local Color
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To the wonderful folks and soon to be neighbors
in Medicine Bow:
Let my wife and I tell you of our experience a
couple of years ago. I am currently serving in the
US Air Force and in early 1998; I received orders
to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Before the move,
Patti noticed an ad in the Bolling Air Force Base
(Washington DC) newspaper advertising land in
Wyoming. We thought about it and called the number.
I talked to a man by the name of Bob Duca and the
land was the Cassidy River Ranch. After speaking
with Bob, Patti and I thought why not take a look?
We had been looking for rural type property to
settle on when I retire from the military, but we
had not thought this far west!
Before our plane ride to Germany, we boarded a
Greyhound in Syracuse, NY (close to our home town)
and headed west. 42, yes, 42 hours later we hit in
Laramie. Our advice is if you have any other means
to travel, TAKE IT!! Anyway, we rented a car and
started toward Medicine Bow. After checking into
the Virginian and taking a badly needed bath, we
decided to start looking around the "local" area
(as Scottie would be showing us the land the next
day). We soon found out what "local" means. We
drove around and noticed you couldn't throw a rock
without hitting a pronghorn. But what we really
noticed was the fact of how clean the air was, how
genuine the people were and once you got used to
the altitude and the pace of life, it was one of
the most wonderful places we'd ever been. And once
we got a look at the land, the choice was
obvious.
We bought our 80 acres and building begins in
approximately nine years. We're looking at house
plans and what to name our little piece of beauty.
People often ask us, "Wyoming? People actually live
there?" And we just smile and nod. Patti and I are
from a farming community just east of Lake Ontario
in upstate New York so we know what living in the
"sticks" is. I spent four long years in DC and will
NEVER live in a metropolitan area again. We look
forward to building our house and whatever else we
wish to on our land. We also look forward to
raising our son, Skyler (nine months) in the
area.
I hope this letter puts a smile on some of your
faces and let's you know how much we appreciate a
place like Medicine Bow. There aren't too many
places like it left and we will help in any way we
can to see it stays like that!
Kent and Patti Delano, 27 June 2000
Here be
Dragons
Dragons slumber
Wings long stilled and fires long cooled
Naught but rounded backs
and perfect rows of jagged rocks for spines
remain
to echo flaming breath and gleaming skin on moonlit
nights.
Skin now freckled
aged with grass and sage
and some a cozy cottage perched upon a
haunch.
Sailors spoke of
monstrous beasts
in lands beyond uncharted seas.
One could almost think
that they had seen
Wyoming.
Copyright,
2000, Laura Wheeler
Spring
Spring came today to Wyoming
Not a cloud was in the sky
The sun shown with gentle insistence
The softest of breezes blew by
Out in the yard we all gathered
To enjoy such a beautiful day
We don't want to miss this fine weather
We just wish it were here to stay
Spring came today to Wyoming
We enjoyed this delightful sneak-peek
For though it was spring just this morning
It'll be winter again by mid-week
copyright 1999, Laura Wheeler
When you are in Wyoming be sure to look up. What the land lacks in
the sky makes up for. Capricious and fickle,
the sky is always rapidly on the move, and changes
minute to minute, providing a new display each time
you look.
Photo by Laura Wheeler, copyright 2000
Medicine Bow
Definitions:
Traffic
Jam - When two vehicles stop in the middle of the
street so the drivers can talk out the windows to
each other. This can force other drivers to drive
around them for as long as a half an
hour.
Fancy Restaurant - Any
place where you have to take off your hat before
eating.
Small Town - Any place
with less than 500 people.
Large City - Towns with
a population of more than 2000
residents.
Mild Breeze - Anything
which doesn't uproot trees.
Lawn - The area of your
yard that you don't have to shovel manure out
of.
Shrubs - What people
plant in their front yards to feed the
deer.
Garden - Bunny
Food.
Local - Anything within
an hour's driving time.
Passing the Buck - What
you do when you don't hit
him.
copyright
1999, Laura Wheeler
Observations
No one could ever call it beautiful country. It is too unlovely for
that. At times, it is striking, and it is often
interesting.
The sage hills of
southeastern Wyoming change their looks only a few
times each year. In the spring, the alpine desert
flowers spring up as a treat for the observant,
sprinkled sparingly among the blushes of green that
spread for a short time across the gentle slopes.
In the winter the wind bullies the snow into
fantastic landscapes. Once you have seen the shapes
of the snowdrifts huddled behind the sage clumps,
you seem to see their shapes everywhere. The very
hills themselves seem just an overgrown drift. And
so they are.
The land here is ruled
and shaped by the wind. And for the long term
residents, the same seems true! Just as the snow is
sculpted and swept into spectacular scenes, the
people take on a character peculiar to coping with
harshness bigger than themselves. Time becomes
relative. When the wind makes the snow flow across
the ground in a dense fog that obscures the road,
appointments are postponed with a casual attitude.
"We'll go next week." Plans are tentative until you
are there. No one lives crouched in their houses
fearing storms. Most people go about their lives,
ignoring the weather till it rouses up in
indignation to demand that we respect its power.
And respect it we do. But life must go on
anyway.
The hills seem barren.
Gray and brown are the predominant colors. The
grass grows green, then fades to a yellow-brown.
The sage sports a soft gray-green, the shade
coveted by the Martha Stewarts of the world. When
yellow blossoms spring up from the dust, even they
seem to be tinged with gray. It takes snow to bring
drama to the landscape. In the bitterest cold we
see something approaching beauty. Spectacular
whitecaps foaming up on a sea of dirt, created by
fancy from the mini-drifts behind each tuft of dry
grass and every clump of sage brush, and the sea
nothing but the scoured land in between. Meringue
Mountains, baked with perfectly browned peaks hide
on lonely roads, where none but the adventurous,
and the imaginative will ever see them. Some who
look see only the blending of wind blown dirt and
snow on the side of a hill.
Those hillsides that
seem so barren on first appearance team with life.
A trip to town becomes a lesson in zoology.
Antelope seem to appear magically from the
hillsides. Like an optical illusion. You cannot
quite see it until you know the trick of it. Once
known, you can see nothing else. Prairie dogs pop
up along the road. Ground squirrels play dodge-em
with the cars. Deer stalk haughtily along the
roadsides, coolly observing the traffic. Hawks
stand sentinel over the area beyond their fence
posts, seemingly defying us to enter their realm.
The barrenness was the real
illusion.
The wind and the cold
can be bitter, cruel, and hard to bear. Many come,
and do not stay. It is too much. Others come, and
burrow in, become part of the lasting tradition of
this land. Our pioneer forbears trod the ground
here, leaving a mark that cannot entirely fade with
the visible signs. The very cold seems to evoke
their images, and encourage our determination.
Those who desire to leave, find a way. Those who
see something more than brown and gray, and feel
something more than wind, find a way to stay. And
when they endure, they become something just a
little more that what they were. Just like the land
has, as it has conformed to the demands of the
wind. Because the wind may remove the features
common to areas that claim the title of beautiful,
but it gives it in return a spectacular character
that we find no where else.
Copyright
1999, Laura Wheeler
By Laura Wheeler
10 year resident of Medicine Bow
...and counting.
Elk Mountain
This local landmark has the shape of a sand dune...
...on
steriods!
Photo by Laura Wheeler, copyright 2000
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