I’m no stranger to bad roads. No one who lives in Wyoming is. “Bad” comes with any number of definitions—blowing snow, drifted snow, ice, black ice, slick in spot, slick, wind, high wind. Once you start combining those conditions, the real fun starts. High winds and blowing snow equal “decreased visibility.” Add in slick roads or black ice, and you’re in for a treat.  

Driving in Wyoming in the winter, you’re almost guaranteed at least one stretch of questionable road because most trips require at least forty miles of highway between towns, though that mileage usually tips closer to one hundred. If you’re traveling often, you become good friends with the WyDot road report. You might even start to memorize the legend. A stretch if road highlight in green is great, low impact—dry roads, low wind, clear skies. Yellow is meh, moderate impact—maybe some 30 to 45 miles per hour gusts on dry roads, maybe some slick spots, maybe wet pavement, but usually not a noxious blend of multiple nasty conditions. Orange is uh-oh, high impact—any combination of unpalatable conditions that render the choice to get on the road questionable. Red is simple, closed—maybe due to the weather itself but often due to a wreck caused by the weather or poor driving. There are also rolling closures so folks don’t get piled up in one town when there’s a wreck or impassable roads down the line. Finally, two red lines mean hmm, a partial closure—maybe the wind is blowing so hard light, high profile vehicles are prohibited, or maybe “no necessary travel” is allowed.” In short, winter driving in Wyoming can be an adventure. 

My least favorite report is orange, high impact. Because that leaves a choice—I know the roads will be bad, perhaps really, really bad, for at least part of my journey. But how bad, exactly? Snow-packed roads and clear conditions aren’t amazing, but if you’re heads up and mindful and maybe a little experienced driving them, they’re not too scary. But it doesn’t take much wind to tank visibility, even on a sunny day, if there’s enough snow whipping across the road. That on top of iffy road surface makes for more excitement. If the roads are yellow, I go and don’t think too much about it beyond paying attention and avoiding cruise control lest I hit a slick spot. If they’re red, well, I’m just stuck where I am, travel plans canceled or postponed. But if they’re orange…I feel pressure to go but am also anxious about it.

In the last week, I’ve made a trip to Riverton, Wyoming (221 miles) and another to Fort Collins, Colorado (67 miles). The weather has been spotty at best—sometimes clear, but sometimes snowing. Always cold, below freezing cold. The road report included at least one stretch of orange on both trips, both ways. But both trips were necessary for various reasons. 

During the Riverton trip, I chose to postpone my return to Laramie by a day because the roads were orange for every mile in between. The next day, only 40 miles were high impact, so I gritted my teeth and pulled onto the highway. During the Fort Collins trip, I chose to return when only one 20 mile stretch was listed orange—the weather and roads didn’t look to be improving over the next twenty-four hours, and that afternoon seemed my best window. 

I’ve been reminded of three things from both experiences: 

First, the worry leading up to both drives was worse than the driving itself. Once I’m underway, I’m committed and the agonizing is over. I have some control—over my speed, when and where to pass if necessary, what setting to choose for my lights, etc. I can’t control what other drivers do. I can’t control rogue gusts of wind or their timing. But I’m out there and going, and I’ve been lucky enough so far in my life to be able to deal with whatever I’m facing. If I feel like I can’t, then waiting to get out on the road is the right choices, even if it means changing plans and all the inconvenience that entails.

Second, even the worst roads don’t last forever, not if I keep moving forward, albeit very slowly at times. Yesterday, on my way home from Fort Collins, the roads were clear until they weren’t. As per usual, the change came right at the Colorado-Wyoming state line. From there, the climb up and over Pumpkin Vine ranked among the worst roads I’ve driven. 

The pavement was snow-packed and icy, it was actively snowing, and the wind was gusting (maybe 35 to 45 miles per hour, though I never saw a number). To say visibility was decreased would be one of the most egregious understatements I’ve ever uttered. I’ve driven delineator post-to-delineator post before, but, yesterday, I was lucky to see half that far at times. The flat, gray light of the maelstrom blurred the road, the surrounding country, and even the sky, inducing moments of disorientation and vertigo, and I kept watching those delineator posts, following them through, trusting feel and guts to guide me. Mile by mile, I made it to the top of Pumpkin Vine and then drove down and out of the white-nothing and into the snow-bright, blue-sky Laramie Valley. 

Would I have gotten out there if I’d known it was that bad? I’m not sure. But the weather changes minute-to-minute, so I made the best choice I could with the information I had when I left Fort Collins.

Today, when I fired up my laptop, opened my novel-in-progress, and picked up on the massive revision I’ve been working on since July, I thought about those last two Wyoming drives. 

Sometimes, I don’t want to embark on the hard work of writing, especially when I’m in the middle of a tricky section and feel uncertain of how to resolve an issue I’ve identified. Sometimes, I feel like I can’t make a choice, am frozen between leaving things as they are and making a change. Sometimes, I need to pause and let things calm down, allow them space to clear up. But there always comes a time to keep moving forward.

In how many areas of my life can I apply this metaphor? Countless. Writing, teaching, backpacking, horse-training, parenting, grieving, loving. But for now, I’m simply relieved to be safely ensconced in my home, and I’m planning to stay right here by the wood-stove until I pick my son up from school.

I wrote this poem the day before we spread my father’s ashes. The next day, before we gathered for that ritual, I walked the Sweetwater River and came up on a bull elk browsing on the far bank. Call the timing what you will – beauty, perhaps?

What Does It Mean to Be

A husband, a father, a brother, a friend? 
Or an antelope, an elk, a red-tailed hawk, a horny toad? 
Or a penstemon, a paintbrush, a prickly pair, a limber pine?
Or flame flickering willow, water over stone, 
wind through sage, granite against sky?

What does it mean to be, to have been, to continue 
in the quiet of bedrock, the whisper of air, 
the sweep of rivers, the lift of ash, 
in us, through us, and on?


(In Memory of Ken Stebner, 1944-2023)

It’s heavy, this Weatherby bolt action 7mm Mag,

and the sling digs into my collar bone on cold days walking

the woods, ducking beneath pines, stepping over deadfall.

My friends call it a relic, me brassbound—so many

upgrades have been made available in gear in the years since

it was minted. Composite stocks and carbon fiber barrels

come light, innovative calibers precise.

But this honeyed wood and blued steel speak

to my heart and other important matters. Legacy,

for one. Joining a family, too, the day they said,

“Granddad would have wanted it to go to you.” It looks

right on the gun rack next to her .270, which he likewise left to her,

and the .30-06 that belonged to her mother before.

Somethings change, have to if they’re to go on—evolutions,

a frontline scope, a silicone harness—but I’ll carry it as long as I am

strong enough, will pull the trigger—I savvy the subtle slack—

will make the killshot necessary to bring home sustenance

I know was taken with care. In doing so, I’ll fill also

myself with hours moving quiet, hoping to scent

the musk of elk, to hear the crack of branch.

This rifle, I’ll lay it down then, press

my palm against yet warm hide and give

my thanks. Then I’ll shoulder it again, heft my pack

laden with quartered meat, and walk on.

It’s good, I think, to carry such weight, to feel it in the sinew of our backs,

the long bones of our legs, the soles of our feet, until each step

becomes a meditation on the circle of the world, and our place in it.

~For Rob on his 40^th Birthday, August 5^th, 2024

*I would also like to apologize for sending my last post about Joe Wilkin’s new novel, The Entire Sky, out twice. I changed my regular publishing schedule to get the review out before his book launched, and it caused a glitch with my newsletter platform. I now am aware of the issue and hope to avoid the same mistake in the future. Please know I appreciate you signing up for my newsletter very much and want to avoid inundating your inbox.

In Wyoming, spring can feel more like a series of allusions and suggestions than an actual season. March and April in particular seem to be uncertain if they belong to winter or are the start of something new. Thus, I always look for assurances that spring is here, even if the forecast calls for the imminent arrival of more snow:

1. Red-winged black birds: In March, the red-winged black birds begin calling from the trees, power poles, and fences at the barn where I keep my horse, Scout, which is in the Little Laramie River valley. I also hear them and sight them along the Laramie River where it winds through town. With a trilling whistle that sounds like “okalee” or “conk la ree,” these birds summon spring. https://youtu.be/hrgGTvzuA1I?si=Dx28kLfGA53i4L0Q 

2. Wearing Sandals in 45 Degree Weather: If the sun is out and the temperature rises about 40 degrees, we Wyomingites convince ourselves it is shorts-and-sandal weather, or at least sandal weather. Are my toes cold? Of course, but I can imagine the insinuation of warmth.

3. Summer is Already Booked: In a state where many of us love to be outdoors as much as possible, we also are forced to cram twelve months of warm-weather activities into about four. By mid-April (if not sooner), my email and text threads are full of inquiries and responses regarding summer plans, and my calendar reminds me that there just aren’t that many weekends in June, July, and August.

4. Whispers of Green: In our yard, the cinquefoil and flax are among the first plants to start showing a little green. It creeps up from under the gray-brown thatch of dead leaves left from fall, tiny shoots of new growth, and I have to search for it at first, bending low to the ground as if to hear a secret.

5. Wedding Invitations: Especially if you’re somewhere in the age-range of 25 to 35, or if your kids are, you can bet your mailbox will be full of wedding invitations this time of year (see #3.). Winter weddings in Wyoming are beautiful, but not as common as summer nuptials thanks to wind, bitter cold, and blizzards that close major roadways.  

6.  Meadowlarks: This year, I heard my first meadowlark on April 3^rd. These yellow-bellied, brown-backed, fence-post and sagebrush perchers are my favorite bird, and their fluting, plaintive whistle reminds me of time spent on the Laramie Plains and in the Red Desert as well as of my father and grandfather, who also held a special affinity for their song. Though they’re the state bird of five other states (Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Oregon), they will always call my heart to Wyoming in spring. https://youtu.be/fRgU4xS06sM?si=ewoeoRV1bebpe4ba 

7. Ill-Planned Excursions: Desperate for nicer weather and an opportunity to get out “into the hills” (as my father always put it), the first run of sunny, low-wind days always tempts me to go for a drive, hike, ride, or run into higher country, which usually ends when I encounter enough snow to force me to turn around. (I am learning though — when I was in my twenties, these adventures resulted in getting stuck more than once.)

8. The Horses Start Shedding:  I used to warn them that more snow was sure to come, but it turns out that shedding is triggered by longer daylight hours more than rising temperatures. There is something deeply satisfying about picking up a brush and combing loose hair off a horse’s neck until it begins to pile around your boots. Then, there’s the moment of placing your palm against a soft, sun-warmed, summer-sleek hide.

9. Nocturnal Ranchers:  Once calving starts, the early-rising ranchers I know start monitoring heifers and cows around the clock. Spring is the season of renewal, and no one understands that better than those who live close to the land, whose days are shaped by its cycles. As wobbly-legged calves emerge into pastures and fields, the lowing of their mothers joins the medley of an awakening land.

10. Riparian Air: It comes unexpectedly, those first hints of water against warm stone, twining through growing things, carried on a warm breeze. Can you smell the color green? It is the scent of spring.

Grief is like a stone dropped into a slow autumn river. First, its entry, the splash, the circular ripples reverberating out and out and on. Then, the repose. Water moves around it, yields to its edges, creates new eddies, turns it now and again. It rests amongst other rocks, shifts in texture and even shape with passing currents and years, becomes part of the stream itself, bits of sifted silt refracting sunlight, settling to bedrock.

Perhaps a meditation on past and present,
the grain of rounds leading to the stroke
that splits them clean. Is tracing the knots
and whorls like reading
a fortune of how they come
apart and how they cleave together?

Or perhaps a meditation on form
and function, the swing of the maul
both power and grace. You feel it,
rising and falling like your breath
in the cold, the slide of sinew and muscle
under your coat, the wood warming already your skin.

Or a meditation on enough and plenty,
on stocking and stoking the rack,
on tending a house until a sense of home
fills the air. The radiance of flame, different
than the blow of a furnace, releases all
the years of growth, like branches reaching skyward.

And how that means generations,
your father’s swing and motion now your own,
becoming our son’s as he carries
an armload inside and helps me lay the fire.
Which is all to say, a woodstove and its heat are simply
beauty in the end, and love.

I initially wrote this poem as a Father’s Day gift for my husband, Rob, and he later had a version of it tattooed on his leg along with an image of the log cabin in which he grew up. Todd O’Hare of Rolling Tattoo in Laramie did the ink. His work is fabulous (and I would know – he’s done about ten tattoos for Rob and one for me, so I get to enjoy his art every day.) Check him out here: https://www.rollingtattoo.com/todd-ohare.

Wishing you the merriest of holidays and many moments of joy, peace and love this season.