I Love Wyoming But It's The Black Hole of Shaving.Maybe

Todd, I hope you know we are just having some gentlemanly fun with you! Actually, a lot of what we have been saying is pretty universal in any rural state, especially the rural western states.

MisfitWY23 is actually in the "beautiful people" area of the state. I'm in the great desert southwest and it is very dry (some years we get less than a couple inches of rain) and certainly does get warmer than north in the Pinedale/Boulder area. One climatic fact for the reader... We probably have the best summers in the country with typically 80-85 degree highs and overnight lows in the 50's. There are parts of Wyoming that get close to 100 once in awhile but in most of Wyoming you can usually count on one hand how many days get over 90. I think people like to visit Wyoming mostly in the summer because of the awesome weather, National Parks, open spaces, public lands, wildlife, and tons of recreation opportunities. You have to really be a different sort or like winter to spend much time hear for about 8 months of the year. Of, we also have awesome falls! So, come visit!

Tell me about it... I went the University of Wyoming. The worst 4 years of my life.

dahveed said:

Tell me about it... I went the University of Wyoming. The worst 4 years of my life.

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Such a personal thing I guess. I left the east coast (suburban Philly area) in 1977 for a new adventure and new life. One of the best sights I ever saw was seeing the high plains, Vedauwoo and dropping down Sherman Hill and seeing Laramie out my windshield. I voice in my head said, "you will never leave". My time in Laramie and education at Udub was among the best times of my life! IMHO, YMMV!

OK, I gotta tell a Wyoming joke: What is the difference between Wyoming and yogurt?






Yogurt has an active culture.

bluesman 7 said:

OK, I gotta tell a Wyoming joke: What is the difference between Wyoming and yogurt?

Yogurt has an active culture.

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Some truth there!

SteveWY said:

Some truth there!

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Since you took that so well: What is the definition of a Wyoming "10"?








A four with a six pack.

Steve, totally get the humour. No problem. Actually, most of Kansas is as you describe though we do go about 2.5 million residents now. However, about 675,000 live in the Wichita area, another 250,000 in the Topeka area, 125,000 in the Lawrence area(my area), and about 750,000 in the Johnson county(560,000 in Jo. co. alone) metro area just east of us. I included Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties in that though technically they are in the 'greater Kansas City metro area'. Trouble is, there are two Kansas City's and the Kansas side gets included in the Missouri side regional area so you rarely hear about the individual cities. I would say K.C. Ks and Leavenworth have about 200,000 between them. So as you can see, geographically Kansas is pretty large(about 90K square miles) but about 85% of the population lives in three or four areas. The Topeka/Lawrence/Johnson Co/K.C.K. run together so really there are two large areas that hold all the population. The rest of the state is de-populating. When you drive through the western areas things get really scarce when you stray a ways from I-70.

Still love Wyoming though yeah, I would have to be near the Casper area or toward the Northwest. I loved the sweet smell of the sagebrush as we drove through the great deserts of the I-80 corridor during a rain shower but the remoteness of those areas between Cody and Thermopolis on Hwy. 120 is pretty lonesome. Lovely and beautiful in its own right I just don't know if my Irish heritage(need for gab with other folk) would allow me to hold out there too long. Still think the resort areas would be a great place to open a small toiletries shop. Retirement business you know. That way if it folded you wouldn't feel so bad about it!

Cheers, Todd

SteveWY said:

MisfitWY23 is actually in the "beautiful people" area of the state.

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"Beautiful people" area? Wow, I didn't realize that. I must really be a misfit if beautiful people are supposed to live here. Are you sure you're not thinking of Jackson with all the movie stars and millionaires and such? I avoid Jackson, I know I don't fit there.

MisfitWy23 said:

"Beautiful people" area? Wow, I didn't realize that. I must really be a misfit if beautiful people are supposed to live here. Are you sure you're not thinking of Jackson with all the movie stars and millionaires and such? I avoid Jackson, I know I don't fit there.

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Ha, I was jabbing you a little! You are still among regular folk in Sublette County. The billionaires haven't run off the millionaires yet! You certainly are in the prettier country. I've only been around Wyoming since '77 but some people I know say that Jackson was still "real" until about the 1970's. It was mostly cowboys, hunters, ranchers, timber guys, etc. I can't even describe it now. Still a great place to visit once in a great while.

Phog Allen said:

I will say the things you listed are cross pollinated here in Kansas.

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It may seem strange, but I used to love driving through Kansas, I love mountains, but there is something about the wide open country that gets me also, and the constant breeze does help with the heat. In fact, I don't think I've seen any countryside I didn't like, except for the places that happen to contain large cities.

bluesman 7 said:

Since you took that so well: What is the definition of a Wyoming "10"?

A four with a six pack.

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There was a time in my early days when that could have been a motto for me! It goes with the song, "The girls all get prettier and closing time!"

SteveWY said:

Ha, I was jabbing you a little!

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I guess you got me, I really wasn't sure what "beautiful people" meant, I was just pretty sure I wasn't one in any sense of the word.

MisfitWy23 said:

I used to love driving through Kansas,

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I had forgotten, but I think I stopped at a Dairy Queen when I went through Kansas too!

bach_rocks said:

I am a native son of Cody. Buffalo Bill is my patron saint.

Lane

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Hi Lane,

Did you move away because of the availability of shaving supplies, or to be closer to a Dairy Queen?

Even some Wyomingites appreciate classical music.

MisfitWy23 said:

Did you move away because of the availability of shaving supplies, or to be closer to a Dairy Queen?

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Ooops, I should have looked first, there IS a Dairy Queen in Cody, so it must have been for the shaving supplies.

MisfitWy23 said:

Hi Lane,

Did you move away because of the availability of shaving supplies, or to be closer to a Dairy Queen?

Even some Wyomingites appreciate classical music.

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I moved with my parents to Salt Lake City as a boy. My mom is from Afton in Star Valley. Rulon Gardner's mom was her sunday school teacher as a girl. My grandfather founded Star Valley Drug on Hgwy 89 in front of the Elkhorn Arch next to Brogue's cheese factory. The happiest times of my childhood were visiting Grandma and Grandpa and my cousins there. Most of her side of the family loves to fly fish. I just loved to go camping and river rafting or tubing with them.

My mom is a celebrated piano teacher. She got her start in Afton. Interestingly, her first teacher in Afton taught on a Steinway grand piano back in the fifties. There was a repo truck that went through Afton when she was a girl, selling reposessed Baldwin Acrosonic spinet pianos from the truck. Her parents, and all her parents' neighbors, bought one. She went on to study piano with Irving Wasserman. Everything I am, musically and otherwise, I owe to her.


I have been trying to move back to WY for a long time. I have a job interview Thursday in the Platte River valley. Wish me luck. I am very hopeful. If it doesn't work out, though, I know that WY is in my immediate future. I recently spent five years working in San Antonio/Austin, a shaving Mecca (does anyone talk about Enchante any more?), but not enough of a Mecca to want to stay any longer than I had to.

I still have lots of family in Star Valley. My parents just bought retirement property there, and I have a brother, a Udub alum in Casper. So it seems everything is coming full circle.

Lane

I just want to reply quick to the OP on the subject of Jackson. I'm familiar with Jackson, and I can say for 1 that Grand Teton is easily in my top 2 most beautiful places I would live forever if given the choice.

As for the town, however, it's no Sun Valley. The problem, IMHO, is that most of the residents (I'm making a big generalization here, and I'm aware of it) work in the tourism service industry. But the tourist season in Jackson is Summer only, which means Memorial Day through Labor Day. So these people basically have work 3 months out of the year, and then it gets REALLY slow. So the residents are not prosperous, and so the town is not prosperous. Once you get past the glossy veneer, it's just another average rural western mountain town with less than 10,000 population. It's remote, poor, and difficult winters are the rule.

I'm not really surprised that you were not successful in finding a boutique shop in Jackson that fit the required niche. Most of what you can buy in Jackson is leather boots, cowboy hats, western shirts, kitschy knickknacks, and high-priced local art. But if you aren't looking for souvenirs, it's K-Mart for you. The locals are just plain folk like everywhere else, but there aren't so many of them. Maybe a toiletries shop would work in Jackson, but you would probably want to close your doors after Labor Day and find other work during the winter, like all the other shop-owners in town.

MisfitWy23 said:

Ooops, I should have looked first, there IS a Dairy Queen in Cody, so it must have been for the shaving supplies.

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Dairy Queens are a vanishing thing in Wyoming. The one in Cheyenne is now a Great Harvest Bread Company. The old DQ building in Green River is now a meat processing business!

Cratz said:

I just want to reply quick to the OP on the subject of Jackson. I'm familiar with Jackson, and I can say for 1 that Grand Teton is easily in my top 2 most beautiful places I would live forever if given the choice.

As for the town, however, it's no Sun Valley. The problem, IMHO, is that most of the residents (I'm making a big generalization here, and I'm aware of it) work in the tourism service industry. But the tourist season in Jackson is Summer only, which means Memorial Day through Labor Day. So these people basically have work 3 months out of the year, and then it gets REALLY slow. So the residents are not prosperous, and so the town is not prosperous. Once you get past the glossy veneer, it's just another average rural western mountain town with less than 10,000 population. It's remote, poor, and difficult winters are the rule.

I'm not really surprised that you were not successful in finding a boutique shop in Jackson that fit the required niche. Most of what you can buy in Jackson is leather boots, cowboy hats, western shirts, kitschy knickknacks, and high-priced local art. But if you aren't looking for souvenirs, it's K-Mart for you. The locals are just plain folk like everywhere else, but there aren't so many of them. Maybe a toiletries shop would work in Jackson, but you would probably want to close your doors after Labor Day and find other work during the winter, like all the other shop-owners in town.

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Lane, that was a nice bio! Good luck with that interview! I love the Platte Valley. Holler if you are wandering east on I-80 this summer and I will buy you an ice tea.

Thanks Lane, I hope you get the job that's best for you and get back soon! I think Rulon Gardner may still in the area. It seems I remember him having a snowmachine (snowmobile to easterners) accident and being trapped overnight in winter with no Dairy Queen around.

(Sorry, I don't think I'll ever get Dairy Queen out of my mind now, and getting caught out in winter is no laughing matter.)