WY Day 4 - Canopies, Cowgirls, and Community
Today I started off in Laramie by getting some coffee at the excellent Coal Creek Coffee Company. It’s the perfect college town coffee shop with plenty of space for studying, good strong brews, and local art everywhere. I was extra won over because they had a sign on the door that said “Home to Malcontents, Revolutionaries, and Do-Gooders of all types” which totally charmed me. The icing on top was that they were just giving away these very important educational stickers:
Fueled up, I made my way over to Cheyenne to give the state capital a more proper visit after arriving slightly after everything was closed yesterday. I started by getting a hell of a brunch at a place called the Luxury Diner. For whatever reason none of my photos came out from this meal which is a darn shame because the Luxury is a beautiful blast of Americana in that it’s a roadside diner housed in a former trolley car thus combining at least three generations worth of nostalgia and history. It’s not just famous for being a a fun retro throwback though, and if the aesthetics don’t sell you, the huge delicious portions for insanely low prices will. I ordered a chicken burrito that the menu said was giant but I was still shocked at how hefty it was for just 9 bucks. In a neat Western roadside twist the burrito was filled with chicken tenders instead of the more traditional grilled stuff, but then it was smothered in delicious green chile sauce to reassert a touch of Southwest authenticity. It was heavenly, and I truly didn’t need to eat for the rest of the day. (*I didn’t want to sell the restaurant short, so I found some photos on yelp that capture a bit of the magic I’m talking about).
For my next stop, I dragged my heaving belly to the Wyoming State Museum. This expansive (and free!) museum tries to capture all the nature, history, and culture contained with Wyoming and it does a pretty admirable job for such a lofty task. Things start off pretty impressively a gallery about the current wildlife in the state that features life-size prairie diorama that really immerses visitors into the state’s natural world. While that should have been the thing that made the biggest impact on me, my brain being what it is, I was most excited by a mounted elk whose paw placements really make it seem like he’s saying “You wanna piece of me?!” I hardcore laughed out loud when I saw it, and I’m still chuckling now.
On a more somber note, the exhibit really made it clear how overwhelmingly negative human impact has been on the diversity of wild Wyoming. The most striking illustration of this was a bison skull that some unknown poet used to scrawl a verse about their dwindling numbers. It’s really haunting, and because nobody knows who did it, it almost seems like a ghostly message from the bison itself.
The next exhibit was about the native geology of the state and changed the tone by being really pretty and shiny. The thing I was most pleasantly surprised to learn here is that Wyoming is known for having bountiful and fairly unique varieties of Jade. I’d never seen much Jade outside of displays of Chinese art (and occasionally Mesoamerican jewelry) but it’s rich green luster makes it such an unusually lovely gemstone, and I can see why the first prospectors to stumble upon it in Wyoming wrote reports of finding Green Gold. It’s not something I ever would have known about Wyoming, but it’s a neat feather in the state’s cap.
While Jade and gold are pretty, most of the more recent economic interest in Wyoming’s geology was aimed at coal, oil, and natural gas, and the museum offered some nice tributes to the insane physical labor that went into actually working the mines and oil fields. I thought the display of different miners’ lamps offered some cool insight into how careful the designs had to be to provide light for long slogs without potentially setting off volatile gases. It really makes me appreciate how physically easy my chosen career has been.
The other substance that Wyoming mining is known for was another kind of surprising one, Uranium. I really had no clue that there was any naturally occurring Uranium within the United States, let alone that it was pretty good business for Wyoming during the nuclear arms race. It’s deeply comforting that they now list a whole lot of other uses for all that Uranium, but I’d be lying if it still wasn’t as scary as it is cool to learn.
Bridging the gap between geology and biology, the next gallery took a trip back to pre-historic times with an impressive collection of fossils left over from the state’s earliest residents. I think in terms of completeness I was most impressed by the sheer quality and quantity of fish fossils, but the museum’s rare fossilized bat was something I’ve never seen before. In terms of curation, I got a real kick out of a notecard that said, “Whose Bone is This?” I think it was meant to be rhetorical but I like the implication that they just found it lying around.
The next gallery focused on more recent residents collecting artifacts from Wyoming’s human history. Credit to the museum, they paint a much more three-dimensional portrait of their little Western State than just looking at outlaws and cowboys. They bring together pieces from early Japanese settlers, Native American moccasins, Automobile racing trophies from 1904(!), frontier dolls, portraits of old buildings that were destroyed by post WWII urban renewal programs, and even Girl Scout pocketknives that make me think the frontier branches were a little more bad-ass than their cookie selling counterparts. Speaking of bad-asses, my favorite artifact was a pair of sandals that were used in an attempted breakout from Wyoming’s Frontier Prison (I said it wasn’t all outlaws, not that there weren’t any) where the escapee nailed deer hooves to the bottoms to make himself harder to track.
One of the biggest draws for human traffic to Wyoming is of course the natural beauty, and I loved the vintage tourism posters from Yellowstone and Devil’s Tower (which I sadly never got to see in person). I thought “naturally BIG” was a hilarious slogan, and the fact that beets were the prime crop used for sugar by early farmers was unsettling to me as someone who enjoys sugar but not beets.
The next gallery was all about the various forms of hard work that went into building the state we have today. There were handmade artifacts from the Native tribes who first learned how to cultivate the land and grow crops from it. The first white settlers to stumble across Wyoming were intrepid rugged Mountain Men, who lived in the wilderness and cut trails through the rockies while being a scourge to the American Beaver population. The military came in and established law and order in the wild frontier which sadly in terms of 19th century priorities meant a lot of bloody wars with Native peoples in the name of the Manifest Destiny garbage. That went how it went, and the cowboys and ranchers built the first versions of the cities that are here today (though the museum’s example of a branded sheepskin made me giggle). Miners helped bring industrialization and new technology, and the railroads connected this West to the East. Sprinkle ‘em all together and you’ve (a simplified but historically interesting versions of) Wyoming.
My favorite artifacts from Wyomingites (the official noun) of years gone by were some examples of handmade furniture that featured absolutely gorgeous hand-worked wood and leather as well as certain animal horn accoutrements that were a little more Texas Chainsaw than chic.
Diving into some more modern history, I give the museum a lot of credit for not shying away from one of the most famous and horrible events to happen in the state in modern memory, the savage murder of Matthew Shepherd. Matthew, an openly gay University of Wyoming student, was beaten and tortured by two assailants and left for dead. They claimed it was just a robbery gone wrong, but the sheer brutality of the crime has led many to suspect that anti-gay sentiment must have been a contributing factor. The silver lining of this tragic incident is that it helped launch a national discourse about the shocking prevalence of anti-LGBTQ violence and established the first federal legislature classifying these attacks officially as hate crimes. The murder also inspired several theater and film pieces, most notably The Laramie Project, an experimental piece based on hundreds of interviews that helped tell this story from multiple viewpoints and raise national awareness about struggles still faced by many in the queer community. It was a senseless awful crime (I have intentionally not gone into any of the worst details), but at least its horror helped awaken a lot of sleeping consciences and I’m glad the museum chose to highlight the progress that came after it while not diminishing the sadness of the event itself.
For a more light-hearted tragedy (if such a thing exists), I really enjoyed the story of George Hopkins, a man who parachuted onto the top of Devil’s Tower on a bet, but then dropped all his hiking supplies leaving him stranded at the summit for 6 days before being rescued. Hopkins survived the ordeal, but became a big media story and a great illustration of how stupid so many human attempts to conquer nature can be.
Moving up to the second floor, there was vibrant and beautiful collection of artifacts honoring the Native culture in the region. I was mostly drawn here to the incredible artistry and craftsmanship on display in many of the beaded and sewn items. The patterns are just so fine and detailed, I’m never not impressed by them. They even had a little beaded SpongeBob which I thought was a wonderful way of showing how these traditions are still alive and well in our modern world, just reserved for history museums.
My favorite items from this exhibit were small stone weights called atlatls that were placed on the backs of throwing spears. Nobody knows for sure if they were to increase stability, reduce noise, or simply for good luck, but regardless of their function the funky little stones are a cool mix of man made craft and incredible natural materials.
The next gallery was part of the museum’s ongoing mission to highlight local contemporary artists, and while I was there the artist in residence was Rebecca Weed. Her drawings and painting used stark color contrasts and masterful shading to blend hyperreal representations of bodies with surreal and dreamlike locations that give everything a hazy half-remembered feel. I thought everything was really hypnotic, lovely, and unique, but naturally my favorite piece was the bottom right one that featured a menacing swirling black mass descending upon adorable little potato people because it was the most bonkers of all of them.
The next gallery was a small showcase of Wyoming silverwork that despite its exquisite craftsmanship I can’t possibly imagine actually serving food and drink on.
Up next was a bigger exhibit about the National Parks Service in Wyoming, which combined some more amazing examples of the state’s wildlife and naturally occurring minerals with some fantastic man-made pieces of art that show how much these patches of land have captured the imaginations of generations of visitors. If I hadn’t seen them first hand, I would have thought the paintings of Yellowstone’s bacterial mats had to be artistic license but that’s just how insanely varied the Wyoming landscapes really are.
Obviously my favorite part of National Parks advertising had to be this massive vintage movie poster for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (a great film) that prominently features Devil’s Tower. Sadly the Devil’s Tower Richard Dreyfuss made out of mashed potatoes was not on display.
The next gallery showcased a really interesting post WWII historical footnote I had never heard of before. To thank the US for their assistance during the war, the Nation of France sent a train full of gifts across the US called the Merci Train. One of the stops was in Wyoming, and the exhibit managed to bring together a really impressive number of the original gifts including clothing, jewelry, decorative clocks, artwork, wooden furniture, pottery, and plaques from Notre Dame. It was fun showcase of early 20th century French art and culture and a even more charming story behind how it all ended up there.
The last exhibit was about the history of Wyoming’s state legislature, which I’ll be honest I didn’t really read much of because my coffee was wearing off. I was far too busy admiring the handiwork on some of the historic gavels that I would have given anything to bang on the table.
Not part of the museum proper, but housed in the same building is the Wyoming Arts Council which was showing off the year’s award winning local art so I couldn’t resist at least giving it a once over. It was quite a powerful display of all the talented working artists across all kinds of media.
For the photography, I couldn’t believe these scenes were real places and not paintings but these vistas really are otherworldly and spectacular.
The craziest example of that otherworldliness was the quatrych of photos of Yellowstone waters by by Scott Mooney that I really just assumed were abstract paintings until I read the description. The natural world is so much more vast and mysterious than I can ever believe.
While the photos may have looked like incredible paintings, the actual paintings and drawings were no slouches either. My favorites included: lithographs that captured Wyoming’s sweeping vistas with impressive minimalism; some mesmerizing organic abstractions made out of cut paper over acrylic; vibrant pop art-y interiors; haunting winter landscapes that capture so much with so little; some charmingly chunky clouds; and a wild scene of a farmer letting it all hang loose out in the field that’s gotta be a huge safety hazard.
My favorite piece though was this piece called Open Winter by Jan Madden that made just phenomenal use of negative space and the natural texture of the canvas to create a landscape that is both grand and tiny in the scope of what it contains. While I’ve never been here in the winter, I feel like it captures something very Wyoming about being in a place where the natural wonder is so ever present but the population is so scarce.
And lastly we had some Wyomingites using more three dimensional media. My favorites included a very regal monkey made of wood and papier-mâché, a cartoony neon figure who I can only assume is Jiminy Cricket, and a simple but lustrous ceramic pot adorned with found twigs and an almost improbably colorful glaze.
I enjoyed all the art so much, though I actually saw some of my favorite pieces as I was leaving in the form of some bright, colorful tourist posters that capture a variety of the possible Wyoming adventures you might have. Shockingly none of them featured amateur comedy as a selling point.
After all that museuming, I went to the very interestingly named Dazbog Coffee for some much needed caffeine. The small chain was founded by Russian Immigrants and operates under the motto, “Russians make the world’s strongest vodka, do you think they’d make a wimpy cup coffee?” It was just the not wimpy kind of pick me up I needed.
Fueled up and ready to go, I did what any 23 year old with energy to burn would do, I hit up the botanical garden. Cheyenne’s Botanic Garden was on the top of most must-see lists and I understood why as soon as I walked in and was greeted by a full on indoor jungle. The whole space was so carefully designed to combine its architecture and foliage in a way that makes it pretty hard not to say “Wow”
The carefully controlled temperature of the space allowed for an incredible diversity of vegetation, including big sweeping topical plants, beautifully delicate flowers, and some good weird cactus-y boys. I don’t think I can really put into words how cool it was just walking around such a sweet and peaceful place, but I’m confident the pictures come at least a little bit closer:
My favorite parts were the little mini gardens contained within the larger space including a small bonsai collection and whimsically well crafted fairy garden. I’m glad that a place that wants to encourage interest in natural sciences isn’t afraid to throw a little bit of fantasy in there too.
On an individual level, this wheel of orchids just blew me away. I don’t know if careful cultivation led to this happening naturally or if it was entirely staged by the grower, but either way the colors alone were so dazzling that the gravity defying arrangement was pure icing on top.
The flowers weren’t the only beautiful things growing there, and the gardens were also home to a wonderful variety of live birds and fish. They didn’t come in quite as many varieties as the flowers, but I’d say they were a whole lot more animated.
The most surprising animals on display were these rare Wyomingite elephants:
While the indoor space was astounding, they gardens also a had rooftop overlooking Sloan Lake and Lion Park that was not to be missed. I don’t think I could have better weather for this pristine viewing experience:
After getting such a good view of the surrounding park, I decided to take a walk around and I was immediately struck by the rainbow signage of the Paul Smith Children’s Village. It’s actually a very cute play area for kids, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the name which was a double whammy for me since one of by best friends from college is named Paul Smith and also the idea of a Village run entirely by children sounds like a nightmare.
While I’m sure it’s great, I figure it wouldn’t look great to be grown man by himself in a Children’s Village so I went out to see what other trails the park had to offer. I mostly just walked by the lake but I was very happy to stumble across this really set abstract couple and the very uplifting poem on their plaque.
I briefly got lost in this labyrinth but luckily I was able to make it out without any minotaur encounters. Just barely though.
My last stop of the day was to see the Cowgirls of the West Museum, partly because it was also free, but mostly because it was a pretty unsung topic across all the other Western museums I’d been to and I was excited to learn more. I was happy as soon as I entered because the woman working the door couldn’t have been friendlier:
The museum was not huge, but it didn’t wast an inch of space. It was covered floor to ceiling with cowgirl memorabilia and interesting factoids. While Cowgirls definitely get the main focus, it’s really more of a general celebration of women in the west, and high society ladies and working moms who helped tame the west as much as the hard-ridin’ and wranglin ladies also get their dues. Some women even served all three roles over their lives depending on how they needed to present themselves, and it wasn’t uncommon for a woman to be able to ride all morning and then still entertain guests for dinner. It sounds like a hard life, but for all the 19th century (and a good chunk of the 20th) it was a life that afforded much more independence and respect than women were able to attain just about anywhere else. It was a fascinating collection, and the only real downside was that mannequins really did have a sort of nightmarish look to them.
A whole wall of the museum was pretty fairly dedicated to one of Wyoming’s most notable bits of legislation. They were the first territory in the country that allowed women to vote in 1869! It was so unprecedented a voting law, that when they were campaigning for statehood the federal government asked them to repeal it lest other states start getting suffrage ideas. The informative display gave a breakdown of the bad ass ladies who petitioned for their rights and the male politicians who made the law official. Partially because of this voting law and its influence, Wyoming also has claim to the first female justice in the US, the first female governor, and the first female state representative which gives this little Red State some pretty cool progressive history.
The back room of the museum was a sort of Hall of Fame of notable Western Women, where I learned some amazing stories. My favorites Included: Oveta Culp Hobby, an incredible person who became the first woman to win the Distinguished Service Medal for contributions during WWII only to then become first ever Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare where she played a pivotal role in insuring that all children had access to the polio vaccine before retiring to become editor of her home town newspaper and carve out the time to be awarded 17 honorary degrees; Dell Burke, an industrious sex-worker who went on to run a bordello so successful that when her city couldn’t afford the equipment needed to cover their water and electricity need during the Great Depression, she singlehandedly bailed them out (and made sure they remembered that whenever any politicians started throwing around ideas about vice laws); two famous female outlaws Poker Alice, who was one of the most successful female gamblers in all the West and one of the only ones who actually managed to keep her money into her old age, and Pearl Hart, a bandit credited with pulling off the last stagecoach heist in US history; and lastly Mary O’Hara, the author of My Friend Flicka, whose life story is almost more exciting and wild than any of her sweet folksy novels as she made a break from wealthy Eastern family to pursue a man who ended up not exactly being the love of her life leading to her forging a career as a pretty successful screenwriter despite being a newly divorced woman in 1920 (no easy task). While in Hollywood, she met and married a Swedish aristocrat and they went to live what they thought would be an idyllic life on a ranch in Wyoming raising sheep, but the Great Depression ruined the livestock market and they struggled to survive on what they could make selling milk until Mary was able to restore their good fortunes by writing what would go on to become a series of best selling novels. Things didn’t work out with the Swede, and they also divorced but she maintained a literary career well into her 70s. I had to read My Friend Flicka in Middle School, and I liked it well enough, but I never would have guessed what a wild ride led to its creation.
Lastly were some pretty spectacular photos from perhaps the purest display of raw cowgirl skills, the Rodeo. Regardless of gender the agility and dexterity needed to pull off the various riding feats on display is just mind-blowing and I’m so glad that so much of it was caught on camera. What uniquely Western legacy, but one I hope their proud of.
After bidding farewell to the cowgirls, I actually drove back down to Fort Collins, just over the Colorado border because I was able to find a much more reasonably priced Air BnB there. I made it to the Air BnB, and promptly took a pretty sizable nap.
When I awoke, I did a little googlin’ and found out there was an open mic within walking distance of my Air BnB so not only could I do some comedy, but I could drink as much as I liked without having to worry about driving home. I was pretty excited.
The mic was at a Mediterranean restaurant called Yum Yum’s Bar which had the college town of vibe of being a place where students could go and get a lot of good food for not a lot of money. I didn’t try any of their food which was almost certainly my loss, but that burrito from this morning really did a number on me. Instead I got a fruity cocktail and a tasty Wyoming beer called the Saddle Bronc Brown from Black Tooth Brewing.
I ended up being a little early to the mic, and I made friends with a woman who was trying comedy for the very first time that night. We bonded over the fact that she was also road-tripping across the country but she was doing it more hippy style, sleeping under the stars, which I simply didn’t (and don’t) have the courage for. It was still nice to meet an kindred-ish spirit, and it was oddly endearing to see someone so nervous for the first open mic after doing well over a hundred. It doesn’t always get easier, but it will at the very least never be as nerve-wracking as that very first time.
The mic itself was a lot of fun, and my favorite comedian of the night was a guy named Marty Wurst who was visiting Colorado from California with some comedian friends of his. He did a fantastic bit about how no matter how mild a car collision is people always exit their car holding their neck like they’re going to sue you for whiplash. He then went on to do, with an incredible amount of commitment, an act out of someone mixing it up and pretending like the mild collision hit them in the balls. I can’t totally do justice in writing, but Marty did with the kind of goofy intensity that Will Ferrell’s made a career of.
Other Highlights:
Alex Linton- You really learn that your own tastes are shit when you see your friends’ Netflix accounts.
Jacob Berger- Growing older I’ve started sympathizing with Disney villains
Elon Strickland -I had to explain to my roommate that we're not friends.
Basil Farrage- A lot of people think I'm gay I call them dad. I froze my sperm… Now I get to watch my roommate have to figure out which ice tray is the right one
Lucas Lawson- every white guy should have a pitbull because it's the closest I've come to feeling discrimination
Jason Rodriguez - someone told me Mexicans are sneaky. They'll now your lawn when you least expect it. I have a small body and I hate when men lift me up
Demetrius Parker- I'm 25 so I've been black for 23 years. It's hard being black so I took a couple years off
Dakota Freeman- A lot of adults in my life did speed. I guess that's why I grew up so fast
Patrick Lowry- Skydiving is the Most fun you can have peeing on strangers
Patrick Bonner- I got offered weed every day in Morocco. So I'm glad I don't look like a narc in North Africa
My own set was pretty middle of the road (likely because I was drinking). I didn’t totally land everything, but I still got some good laughs and I had a really fun night. There are certainly much worse ways to end a day than that.
Favorite Random Sightings: Born in a Barn Boutique (seems like a niche market); Crowbar and Grill (I’m not sure what the crowbar adds to things); A big billboard saying, “Pregnant? Consider adoption” (I think they were going for a “consider giving an unwanted baby up for adoption as opposed to getting an abortion” vibe but it sounds to me more like “having a kid? try getting more kids!!!”)
Regional Observations: Cheyenne is just full of these giant decorative cowboy boots and it’s very weird but also pretty neat.
Albums Listened To: Wide Awaaaaaake by Parquet Courts (I listened to it out of order because I was excited to have a new CD)
People’s Favorite Jokes:
From a very enthusiastic barista:
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Dwayne
Dwayne who?
Dwayne the tub, I’m drowning!
Songs of the Day:
Freebird II is such a funny song name
I really like the animation for the video and the pop pivot halfway through