Mountains

I went to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park with my friend Jennifer today. It was gorgeous. We went hiking for a while and then it starting looking like rain so we turned around. Colorado is really beautiful. I can’t imagine what it would be look to live in Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder or Denver and be so close. There are such great views. I guess people probably get used to it and don’t treasure it enough. They get busy with other things. But I thought it was super cool. I may try to make it back out there again before I leave. And to top of the trip, we stopped in Fort Collins for Indian food. Yum. It’s so sad Cheyenne doesn’t have an Indian food restaurant.

To see more pictures from the trip, go here.

I had two stories published this week that I was kind of proud of. They were both interesting to report and write. Both went out on the west wire (not the national wire,) but I liked them. One is about Michigan workers coming to Wyoming because the Michigan economy is not so hot. The other one I wrote Friday. It’s about an increase in fees to film in the national parks.

I just got back from walking down to the coffee shop down the street that has wireless. I thought it would be a faster place to upload my photos from today’s trip. It was closed, but as I was walking at least five people in cars stared at me. True, I was the only one walking. But this is a downtown area – made for walking. It’s always kind of bothered me in these mid-sized towns that if you go out to walk it means either your homeless or crazy. That’s how it was in Springfield. That’s how it was in certain parts of Lawrence. It’s just expected that you drive everywhere. That’s why we have an obesity problem in this country.

I’m excited. I think Grey’s Anatomy is new tonight!!! Yeah!

The Adams Family

I went to Madinah and Dan’s wedding this weekend. It was so much fun!!! Kansas is so green. The ceremony was held at Spring Hill Suites and then the reception was at the Lawrence Arts Center. The arts center was such a cool place to have the reception. Madinah’s family is so cool. It was nice seeing them again. Dan’s family seemed super cool too. I love Lawrence. It’s one of those things you think about when you leave a place—how much you miss it. I love all the hip shops and the unusual people. College towns are the best.

More pics from the wedding here.

www.flickr.com jennifercbyrd's Madinah and Dan's wedding photoset

Another one of my stories went on the “A” wire. Here's a link. It wasn’t picked up by as many sources as the Brokeback story, but still not bad. Pretty cool, actually.

So I went to Casper yesterday for a Wyoming Pipeline Authority meeting. The meeting was basically looking at why oil from the Rocky Mountain area is priced so much lower than the world price. They’re producing quite a bit of oil, but there’s not enough infrastructure to get it out. So after sitting through that extremely loooong meeting (full of white men--I only saw two women who were not reporters and no minorities,) I got in the car and listened to numerous public radio stories about high gas prices. It really seems like we have enough energy in this country—we just don’t know how to utilize it. There are so many possibilities – and things are starting to happen – but it’s not happening fast enough. Oh, and gas in Casper was only $2.55. Amazing. In Denver it’s over $3 a gallon. I know it’s a ton worse on the coasts.

Casper is fairly interesting. There’s a mountain range (or maybe they’re just large hills) directly to the south of town. The mountains were covered with snow and they were really pretty. And, of course, the drive was really nice. Not many people. Cool scenery. The only bad thing was all the construction. ;-(

Wide open spaces

I went to Gillette, Wyo., and Belle Fourche, S.D. on Monday and Tuesday. You know, Wyoming has some pretty cool scenery. Especially on I-25 between Gillette and Douglas. I took this picture from my rental car, so it's not too great. But I think you get the idea. The drive back was pretty rough because of all the snow. I made the mistake of thinking I could cut off some time by going through the Black Hills. Wow, big error. The road was extremely curvy. I was going up and down mountains. Mind you, this was all during blizzard-like conditions. The snow was literally blowing sideways. With 60 mph gusts. A couple times I had no visibility and thought I was going to be engulfed in a white cloud. It was pretty scary. I hit Lead, S.D., and got out to ask someone if the road was going to continue being curvy. She took one look at my rental car and said, "turn around." I guess the road ahead was even worse, so I turned around and headed back to Gillette. Good move. That drive was much better -- even if it took longer.

During the trip I interviewed these guys who just moved to Wyoming from Michigan because the economy stinks in Michigan (with all the auto layoffs and such...) I kind of felt bad for them, but most of them actually seemed to have wanted to move to Wyoming. They had different reasons -- always wanted to go west, wanted to get away from people (especially the Flint guys), etc. That's got to be a pretty tough transition though. They tried to act all tough, but I could tell the younger guys were homesick. Just like me. You live in one state your entire life and then you pack it all up and move someplace completely new. You know, this may sound conceited, but I'm really glad I went to school and have a college degree. Doing the type of work those guys do -- laying pipe, construction, working in the coal mines -- really does not sound like much fun. But they're making a good living and taking care of themselves. It's all about survival, one guy said. How true that is.

Over the weekend I went back to Springfield for Easter. It was a really short trip. I flew out of Denver on Saturday and was back Sunday. Springfield was so green. You really do start to miss trees out here. My uncle showed my brother and I all the tornado damage to his house. It was pretty bad, but did not even compare to some of the other houses. One looked completely normal from the front, but the entire back had been ripped off. It was sad because these were new, big, beautiful houses -- dream homes really -- that were just torn to shreds.

On a lighter note, Mike and I went camera shopping on Saturday and I got a new Canon SD600 elph. My old camera has been starting to die and since I was taking the trip to Gillette on Monday, I figured a new camera might be a good thing to have. The AP has no photographers for the entire state of Wyoming. So I need to take my own. A story usually does much better if it has some graphical/multimedia elements. I like the new camera. It's super quick and takes pretty good pictures for a point and click. I'm excited because I'm going to get to use it at Madinah's wedding this weekend. I can't wait. It's going to be a blast. It's really weird because I went on their first date. It was kind of double date, but things didn't work out between me and the guy I went with. But now Madinah and Dan are getting married. Amazing.

Ryan Howard

Ryan Howard, a guy I went to college with, is becoming a really well-known baseball player with the Philadelphia Phillies. I didn’t know him – I think I interviewed him once. But I definitely remember his name. This article, which was the lead story on ESPN.com the other day, totally took me by suprise. I wasn’t aware of it until reading this article, but he was named Rookie of the Year last year. Wow. Go fellow Bear!!!

I’m a little surprised nothing is going on with immigration in Wyoming. Hispanics are by far the largest minority in the state, but they’re still only at 6.4 percent. Of course, not all illegal immigrants are Hispanic or Latino, as Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez points out. I know there have been several protests in Colorado and I’m not surprised. I went down to Greeley this weekend and parts of it reminded me of Mexico. Lou Dobbs has been talking about immigration for at least the past two years. I remember writing a blog entry about him being completely OBSESSED with the topic. Well, he’s finally having his day now. He’s pretty much been on every CNN program during the past week—I’m getting a little sick of seeing him. It’s an important topic though. I think the only reason it’s coming up now however, sadly, is because of politics. It gives fuel to both the Republicans (keep them out, build a fence!!) and Democrats (come on now, that’s too extreme!!) This article about Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback interested me. It would be hard for him to come out too strongly against immigrants, given the many, many illegals work in rural Kansas. And the farmers and business owners want to keep them.

My friend Luke called me this weekend to make sure I was “doing OK.” He had been reading my blog and I guess might have been afraid I was suicidal or something. Things have been really negative on here lately, and I apologize. It seems the only way I can make myself feel better is to write about it. I was kind of surprised. I didn’t really think anyone was reading this, because no one comments. Blogs are really so narcissistic. I mean, really who cares about how many “saki bombs” my day was? I’m going to try to keep my Wyoming-hatin’ comments away from this blog now. It could be a lot worse—at least I’m a legal U.S. citizen. I have a lot to be thankful for.

MySpace.

I discovered that a coffee shop downtown has wireless. And it’s good wireless. It doesn’t come and go like my hotel’s wireless (which is soooo slow.) So I proceeded to sit there for, like, three hours and finally figured out MySpace. I signed up a while ago, but never had time to write more stuff on there, find friends or change my background. Of course, now I’m obsessed. I stayed up late working on my profile and finding old friends. It’s kind of cool you can catch up with people you haven’t seen for years through these Internet sites. Seriously, how did people survive pre-Internet? I don’t think I could do my job very well without it. You know how journalists used to keep treasured rolodexes with the names and numbers of all their sources? Yeah, my Rolodex is Google.

Anywho, despite my new obsession with MySpace I think I’m going to keep blogging here. I like Jbyrdie’s Nest and I feel like we’ve got some good history together.

So I saw a car today that I decided I should write about. It was just a regular gold Honda accord – nice car, I must say J – but it had all these bumper stickers all over it. A red, white and blue ribbon with “Freedom isn’t free.” A “Keep Christ in Christmas” sticker. A “Pro-Life” sticker. A “W: The President” sticker. And so on … you get the drift. While these stickers no longer surprise me – I am aware of the fact that I’m no longer in liberal Lawrence but in reddest of all red Wyoming – I was just kind of taken aback by this vehicle. I mean, why so many stickers? Plus, pretty much everyone in this town agrees with his point of view. I guess he felt he had to make a statement. Of course, I’m assuming the driver was a “he.” When I drove by and tried to look in, the windows were tinted so much you couldn’t see a driver. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be known as the guy with all the conservative bumper stickers? It was just weird.