Crazy Woman

Ben and I arrived in Sheridan, WY last night at about 10:30. We had a warm welcome from Jay and his 16-month-old daughter Alexia as we settled in for the night. The drive up here from Vail took about 8 hours, and while some of it is scenic and beautiful with the wide open spaces of the Wyoming country side, most of it is quite boring and monotonous. Apart from the cities of Cheyenne and Casper and the occasional deer grazing on the side of the road, the drive up I-25 will leave you in almost complete solitude. It begs the question to somebody who is considering moving to Wyoming "why?". But fortunately not all of the state is like that, and once you go west a bit the landscape becomes stunningly beautiful with its high mountain peaks that still bear the snowy marks of the previous winter's fury, as well as the local moose and deer.

This afternoon Jay took Ben and I up to Crazy Woman Canyon, just west of Buffalo. Now with a name like that there's got to be an interesting story behind it, and the internet offers a number of possible explanations of how the place got its namesake. Some are more colorful than others, but the generic version is that any woman who was willing to move west before their were highways and Starbucks were considered by their families back east as "crazy". But I would imagine that most men could come up with their own Crazy Woman story derived from personal experience(s) that would be just as bizarre and interesting as the ones around these parts. I certainly could...

Last night I stayed up really late talking with Jay about all sorts of stuff. I always love hanging out with Jay, and am totally blessed by his fellowship. He has such an in-depth of knowledge of the Scriptures that if you didn't know better you'd think he'd be known as Dr. We stayed up so late that the sun snuck up on us, so I decided to take advantage of being up at sunrise to do some filming of the countryside.

Tomorrow we're going to church in the morning, and then it's off to Yellowstone national park to see some of the most beautiful sights this country has to offer. If you haven't taken a trip out to see some of these places, I can't recommend it enough. Seeing the Grad Canyon or Old Faithful, or even the world's largest ball of twine in pictures is one thing, but seeing them with your own eyes is another thing entirely. And what better time to do it when gas isn't even $5 a gallon?