Welcome to Wyoming

So much has happened in the last month that it’s quite difficult to capture it all in one blog post. In the future, I hope to write updates more frequently, but for now, I’ll try to provide some idea of what I've been up to since I arrived by writing what may be a slightly-disjointed post.

I flew into Denver on August 8^th, spent the night and a lovely day there before driving up to Laramie in a rental car (which turned out to be a very good idea from my parents). In my first week or so, the high altitude (Laramie is at about 7200ft) and dry air gave me three nosebleeds! The house is great – trying to sort out housing from such a distance was a bit of a headache, especially since a couple of places fell through, but we got a great place in the end. I’m living with another American Studies grad student and her boyfriend and their two dogs (almost everyone here has dogs, even students). I spent quite a bit of time – and money – getting my place all set up. There was a lot to buy, since my room was unfurnished and I was limited in what I could bring with me, but I actually quite enjoyed shopping for everything (think Extreme Makeover: Home Edition when they’re in Sears). It definitely feels like home now. The house had no internet for the first few weeks, which meant I became very familiar with local café Coal Creek Coffee Co. and their free wi-fi. I went every day and must’ve tried most of their drinks (I can tell you about the Orange Slider, Hot Snow, Peach Ice Tea Cooler…), but we’ve, thankfully, now got internet at home (which works most of the time).

I met a lot of nice people in my first few weeks, many of whom are not from the area originally, but who love it and have decided to stay. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to has warned me about the winter – the snow could come as early as the end of September, and often hangs around until May or June(!) I’m really hoping to try skiing while I’m here, since it’s so popular and it makes sense to make the most of all the snow.

The Cooper House, where American Studies is based. Isn't it lovely?

I’ve just finished my third week of classes and they are going well, although there’s quite a lot of work to get used to. I'm enjoying learning much more about the history and evolution of American Studies in my graduate class and I'm hoping to go to the American Studies Association conference in Baltimore in October. I'm quite enjoying TA-ing for Introduction to American Studies and grading papers has certainly been interesting! I was elected the secretary of the UW College Democrats. I really enjoyed getting involved with the College Dems in Oregon, so I'm excited to get involved here too, even though Wyoming’s political landscape is obviously slightly different to Oregon’s!

Freight trains - they actually look oddly majestic crossing the landscape.

I went to one of the western wear stores downtown, Martindale’s. They have all manner of cowboy boots, hats, belt buckles, shirts… it was great. I spoke to the (“NRA lifetime member”) owner briefly about rodeos and was particularly interested by something he said to a couple visiting from Pennsylvania. They said he should visit them back east and he said he didn’t want to – “I hear there’s people standing shoulder to shoulder from the Mississippi to the ocean”. It was similar to something that someone I met from Casper (Wyoming’s second biggest ‘city’ at 55,000 people) said – that he wouldn’t want to move any further east because there’s too many people. People out here (many at least, probably not all) have interesting attitudes towards space – they are very committed to the notion of freedom that living in such an empty state seems to bring.

Finally, a picture of two guys I saw on campus. There are many people in my classes who wear cowboy boots, but these were the most impressive outfits I’ve seen yet.

Move 'em on, head 'em up,
Head 'em up, move 'em out!