North Carolina! Go on and raise up!!!

I went last weekend to visit my friend Lisa in Raleigh, N.C. We toured Duke, UNC and took a nice trip to Wilmington to see the beach (and so I could see the hometown of my most favorite, favorite basketball player of all time -- even Dwayne Wade could not overtake him in my heart I don't think -- Michael Jordan.)

OK, quick thoughts.
*Cameron Indoor Stadium (Duke's home court) is TINY!!! It reminded me of a high school gym. But I can imagine how loud and intimidating that place can get with screaming fans right on your back. It looks much bigger on TV, I suppose. They were having a high school graduation when we were there (see pic.)



*Duke is really just a small liberal arts college that has built up a prestigious name. The campus is quite small and kind of reminded me of Drury in Springfield. It does have a giant (and gorgeous) chapel in the middle of campus and medical and law schools though.

*UNC has a really nice campus and Chapel Hill is a neat place. But KU and Lawrence are still better :-)

*It's nice to be around southern hospitality. If someone runs into you in a store, they say "excuse me." Men let women eat first and open doors. It was a little weird for me...

*Sweet tea is yummy. But too much of it can just give you a headache.

*The Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area is much larger than I thought it would be (it's quite spread out and the population is just under a million.) I'm not sure why I thought it'd be smaller -- I guess I was just expecting small college towns or something. You don't think you're in an urban area most of the time because of all the trees that line the highways. But then you see some crazy driving and you remember you're in a place with a lot of people (some of which are absolutely NUTS and don't know how to drive.)

A few more photos

I've been having some difficulty posting multiple photos. The text isn't wrapping properly. But here are a few more photos from my trip out west.


In Teton National Park.


At the Crazy Horse memorial in South Dakota (it's close to Mt. Rushmore.) Only a little bit of the actually memorial is finished on the mountain right now, but the statue in the front is what it's supposed to look like. They started the project more than 50 years ago, but haven't gotten too far yet.


At Grand Teton National Park.


Where Custer made his last stand.

Trip continued...

I made it to Chicago today, which means I have enough bandwidth to finally post some more pics.
Old Faithful was cool, but not as tall as I thought it would be.













Mom and Dad at Devil's Tower in northeast Wyoming. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was shot at Devil's Tower. It's a natural formation and I don't think the picture does justice to how big and cool it is.









Teddy Roosevelt got gypped, I think. He's in the back of the sculpture and you don't notice him as much as the others. You can see George Washington from far away. He sticks out more than the others and his collars are included. None of the others have collars. I also thought it was funny that Lincoln had no ears. Did Borglum get tired? One thing about Mt. Rushmore I didn't know: The idea came about because a local leader wanted to bring tourists to the area. His first idea was a sculpture of western heroes, like Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill, etc. The idea that it came about to be a "tourist draw" kind of weakened it for me. Part of the town around the mountain reminded me of Branson.

They're partying it up in Hell

6-6-06. Oh boy.

From Jackson, Wyo.

More pics!
Even though it's been snowing and cold, Jackson has been awesome. The Tetons are breath taking. Literally. My breathing stopped when I first saw them (but then again, maybe that's the altitude...) My dad and I went on the Jackson Hole Tram, which is being retired at the end of this season, to the top of Rendevous Mountain today. We were about 10,000 feet up, I think. Most of the view was in the clouds, but you could see out in certain spots. I was a little woosey on the tram ride up, but it wasn't too bad. Jackson is definitely a touristy place, but the locals seem really eccentric and interesting. Houses are extremely expensive, but given the views, I can understand.

No Dick Cheney sightings (*sigh*) He's supposedly at his Jackson-area house for the weekend. No Secret Service sightings either. Maybe he and Lynn cut their trip back to Wyoming short. Good thing he ran Haliburton for awhile--I'm not sure how many politicians could afford to live here.

Da Vinci Code comments, etc.

So I went and saw The Da Vinci Code. It was a couple days ago, but this is the first chance I’ve had to write about it. I liked it. I don’t know why all the critics seemed so turned off by it. It was slow in a couple places, but overall, I was entertained (but that doesn’t really take much these days.) It was fairly accurate to the book. There were a couple things that bothered me – like how Langdon was interrupted by police in the middle of his lecture at the beginning. In the book there was a good sequence of him sleeping at the Ritz and ignoring police calls. I liked that scene because it personalized him more. And I still don’t really like the casting of Tom Hanks as Langdon. He’s just not what I pictured Langdon would look like or act like. And, maybe my memory is just going, but I don’t remember the sequence about young Langdon falling down a well in the book. Maybe I just missed that part…

You know, the story is female empowering, I think. Maybe that’s why I liked it. Obviously it’s just fiction, but the idea of a vast conspiracy to oppress women for centuries doesn’t seem that far off base to me. It did happen, you know. Of course, I’m simplifying the story line severely.

Anywho. Good movie. Made a lot of money. It showed those critics and religious protesters what it was made of, eh?

This is my last week in Cheyenne. I’ve got to say, I’m quite happy to get out of here (you would have NEVER guessed that from my previous blog entries, right?) Getting out of the hotel will be the best part. I never realized how much I like having “my stuff.” My parents are coming on Friday and we’re going to take off for Jackson and Yellowstone on Saturday. It’s Memorial Day weekend, but I’m hoping there’s not TOO many people at the parks. I’m really excited to see the Grand Tetons and Old Faithful. I think this is the reward for coming out here – if I hadn’t come here, I probably never would have gone to see these cool places. Yes, I feel better now. After Yellowstone, we’re going to head up to Helena to do some apartment hunting. I hope I can find a good place. Since I’m going to be there a little longer than I was in Cheyenne, I’m hoping to avoid a hotel. I think I can probably get a short-term lease on an apartment, but we’ll have to see.

After Helena, I want to swing back around northeast Wyoming and go see Devil’s Tower (where Close Encounters of the Third Kind was shot.) I wanted to see it on my trip to Gillette, but the blizzard kind of ruined things. I’m also hoping we can swing over to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. That’s something I’ve always wanted to see and we won’t be too far away.

I think we’ll leave my car in Cheyenne, so after coming back I’m going to take off for Chicago. I may stop off in Lawrence because I really want to see some friends. Oh, I’m so excited about this road trip!!! It’s so great to get away. Only three more days left!

Isn't this an awesome picture?

It was published in the Powell paper today. The photog has got to be brave getting that close to a grizzly. But the picture sure turned out cool.

I got another story on a national wire--this one went out on the financial wire and is about bentonite. It's intriguing stuff I tell you!!!

hotel... driving... me... INSANE!

OK, this hotel I’m staying at is starting to drive me crazy. For the last few weeks, there’s consistently been a car parked in the fire lane, making it extremely difficult to get out of the driveway. It seems I have to Austin Powers my way out of a parking lot just about every day. In most places, when a car is blocking the driveway by parking in a designated fire lane, they’re towed. Right? Makes sense. But no, not here. It’s Wyoming—you can park anywhere and everywhere. We don’t need no stinkin’ parking rules. If there was a fire, a fire truck couldn’t get in. Which is starting to really concern me because everywhere I turn I see someone smoking. The people next door were doing it in their room, so the smoke was escaping underneath the door between our two rooms, totally stinking up my room (which, by the way, is supposed to be non-smoking.) Hello, people, wake up. Smoking is disgusting. And it kills people. I think I’d like it here a lot more if I wasn’t staying at this place... It’s really going to make me appreciate having “a home” in the future. Every time I come back from going someplace the old men painting the building are out on the balcony blasting music ... and staring at me like I’m a foreign creature. It’s really starting to freak me out. Shouldn't they be working? Only 19 days left!!!

Denver is super cool. Plus, Cinco de Mayo fun!!!

I went to Denver today. It was sooooo cool (but, then again, I’ve been big city starved for awhile here…) I think I lucked out. I remembered hearing something on TV about how Denver has the world’s largest Cinco de Mayo celebration. Since May 5 was Friday, I thought I’d missed it. But I guess they celebrate all weekend. So I kind of stumbled upon this giant Cinco de Mayo celebration. I had some wonderful Mexican food and a great opportunity to people watch. I didn’t see any “backlash” against the immigration boycotts that I’d been hearing about on TV. One thing I thought was interesting—the Navy had a HUGE presence at this thing. Giving out all kinds of free stuff, having Navy seals sky dive in, etc. Trying to recruit some not-exactly-legal residents possibly? That’s just my cynical mind at work, I guess.

For pics of the trip, go here.

Downtown Denver (especially the 16th street mall) is SO COOL. And what kind of surprised me was how clean it was. No trash, clean air, no graffiti, etc. The city provides free public transportation up and down the mall and all the buses are hybrids. No diesel stinking the place up-—which was really nice. The weather was really great, the shops were cool and the people were fairly nice. There are some really cool condos near Coors Field. That would be such a great place to live. Right close to baseball, restaurants, bars, shops and a 30 minute drive to the mountains – what more do you need? Too bad the Denver Post is buying out its employees right now. Ironically the Denver Post-Rocky Mountain News building (I think they're owned by the same company now) is right across the street from the state Capitol, which was where all the Cinco de Mayo celebrations were taking place. The newspapers have really nice, big buildings. One was at least 20 stories high, the other was probably around 12-15. They were doing construction on part. I'm guessing the newspapers rent out a big chunk of the space, but should they really be doing all this construction on an already really nice looking building when they can’t afford to pay their employees? I’m sure there's MUCH more that goes into that – but it kind of struck me.

My friend Madinah and Dan were thinking about moving to Denver. I don’t think they are going to now, but I definitely give it two thumbs up!!

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.

Click my heels...

I went back to Kansas this weekend for my friend Madinah's bachelorette party. We had a blast!!! I miss those girls. It was hard to leave. It's always so great to see friends. Life is hard, friends get you through it.

The party didn't get too crazy ... no strippers unfortunately. :-( Come on, what's a bachelorette party without strippers? Madinah did get up on a table and danced, which was hilarious. The college boys started giving her dollar bills. Kinnard and I were so pissed we didn't have a camera to document it. I'm so happy for Dan and Madinah--it's great to see people happy together.

I got back to Wyoming not too long ago and have to go back to reality tomorrow. Ugh. Why can't life just be a constant party? That's what I want to know...

More pictures here!!!

Jenny Byrd: Eat. Drink. Be Lazy.

Went to Boulder today with Staci and Bryan. It was a blast, but the drive back to Cheyenne was kind of rough. Will it ever stop snowing? Loved Lazy Dogs bar. I think I picked up a new life motto.

More photos here.

Dick. Cheney.

A pic of Air Force 2. In other news, it's -16 degrees here right now. No kidding. It was a very, very, very frigid day. My fingers felt like ice cubes ready to break off. It was so cold, Dick Cheney's shot gun must have froze!!! Haha. OK, enough with the gun jokes...

I saw him get off and get back on the plane. That was about it. There weren't many people at the airport to great him because it was so darn cold. But it was an exciting day.

Hooker boots.

I saw four women wearing hooker boots at the Capitol today. They're really not that bad. A lot of women wear them (you know, the black leather boots that come up to your knees). Maybe I should stop referring to them as "hooker boots." I don't have a pair. But I've heard they're warm. They're probably a good idea for out here since it's so freakin' cold!

Grammy's. Stories.

I'm disappointed Kanye didn't win best record. Come on, Boulevard of Broken Dreams has been out forever, right? Wasn't that song in last year's list? I guess not, but whatever.

Oh yeah, I've had some more stories published. None of them got the play my first story did (I think I was just luckly on that one,) but if you want to read them, here are some links:
UW license plates
State Rodeo
Governor
Legislator who blogs

Rock Chalk!!!

KU beat Oklahoma today! It was an awesome game. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!