There are places in Wyoming where the wind never stops talking, fences lean like an old man telling a story, and barns stand out like a visiting dignitary.
One of the first Australians I became great friends with was from Melbourne. I met him while in Hawaii. I was running a youth hostel in Waikiki, and Luke was visiting his uncle.
I don’t remember why he came to the hostel, because Luke’s family was connected and well off. Another uncle was the Lord Mayor of Adelaide, a large city and the capital of South Australia.
In Wyoming, planning for drought isn’t a “maybe someday” thought; it’s a constant, carefully monitored possibility.
Anyone running cattle, horses, or putting up hay has a mental playbook in their head, ready to take action the minute winter snowpack looks thin, or spring rains amount to nothing but a drizzle.
Throughout the week, I am still typically driving all over the county, except the Little Snake River Valley. I’ve logged plenty of miles again in 2026, from Rawlins to Elk Mountain and back, and most of that time behind the wheel has been on U.S. 30 and the smaller roads I prefer. And once again, I’ve had the same epiphany.
Last week, I went to the Rawlins Senior Center and I discovered Copper France, President/CEO of the Bank of Commerce, was giving a presentation on scams that he wanted to warn seniors about.
He, Nicole Murray (also of Bank of Commerce) and Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken have also gone to Baggs and Saratoga Senior Centers to warn attendees about scams that are out there and how they work.
The other day, I watched one of my favorite movies of all time. It is truly an amazing film and although it won the Golden Globe for best foreign film in 1993 and was nominated for best foreign film at the Academy Awards, I hardly know anyone in Wyoming who has seen it.
If you’ve spent any time in Wyoming, you’ve probably heard someone say, “We saw a buffalo!”
And then gently or maybe not so gently corrected by someone who’s been waiting their entire life for this exact moment. “Bison”, said with the confidence of someone who owns a snowplow shovel and knows how to use it.
The first time I went to Nanjing was one of my first times I traveled to China. I ended up going there because of a good friend who was now in Shanghai, whom I had known in Taiwan. Clay was Australian and was a guy who could speak Chinese well and had a strong ambition to get something going on the mainland.
He moved to Shanghai when most residents were still using bicycles to get around.
It’s no secret that I prefer to stay in the background and run things without needing credit much or titles. I enjoy graphic design; it’s part of what my degree is in. I also enjoy the other parts of creating a newspaper, photography, editing and occasionally writing when the need arises.
I have joked more than once, “Am I the only one who saw Terminator?”
When AI (Artificial Intelligence) first started appearing in my life a couple of years ago, I was concerned because I saw drone technology getting more and more advanced, and I feared that someday a transfer of AI to drones could actually happen.
“They don’t understand, they’re not locals”. I have heard this comment for years and pondered, “What exactly defines a ‘local’?
I believe there is an unwritten law of belonging to a community. A local isn’t just about where you live. It’s a mixture of time, behavior and acceptance.
