First Impressions of Wyoming

Wyoming was beautifully unexpected. After our day-trip to Bear Lake, we went with Nate to his hometown of Cokeville, Wyoming. The town is most well-known because of the movie “The Cokeville Miracle,” which apparently is a pretty accurate account of two crazy people who held children and adults hostage at an elementary school by threatening to blow them up with a home-made bomb. You can read the full story here.

Nate showed us the big hill behind his house, which was literally called something like “big hill” and in the morning, he took us on a drive to see the rest of the town. I’ve always wondered as I’ve passed signs that read “Population 500” what it would be like to grow up or live in a town of 500 people. My high school class alone was 500 students, about 2200 in the whole school. As Nate took us around and pointed out each and every house and who lived there, the town tour was more about learning about each person in the town. I really loved that.

Nate, his brother Lincoln and his dad also took us up into the mountains and showed us some beautiful hidden spots like the waterfall above. We ate red berries off the bush, and went up to the ski-lift that has one run during the winter.

Then we took a trip a little further out of town, had lunch at the Red Baron (very good milkshakes), saw the world’s largest Elkhorn arch in Afton, WY (over 3,000 antlers are woven together — also, these antlers fall off naturally and the arch is not a showing of hunting or shooting game), and then hiked up to see the “spring that breathes” — Intermittent Spring — one of only three springs in the world that start and stop every few minutes with no sure reason why. It’s a pretty spectacular thing to witness.

My first impressions of Wyoming? Unexpected treasure. Ready to go back again soon.