Good morning!
I hope you're well and enjoying a beautiful summer!
I'm remembering the freedom we celebrate this July and a different kind
of freedom I found when I moved to Wyoming.
It was forty years ago, July fifth, that I moved from New Hampshire to
Wyoming. As you may remember, my Mom advised me to give it a year
before I decided if I'd stay forever. That was in 1980.
My move was actually my second trip to Wyoming. Everything went
smoothly in 1980 when I made my move. But it hadn't been so on my first
trip.
I found Wyoming in 1977 behind the wheel of a 1970-something VW Bug,
along with two friends, and, if I remember right, two dogs.
We coasted into Douglas, with an empty gas tank and empty pockets, in
search of a friend from New Hampshire, who had come out a year before
to work in the oil field.
A couple of weeks before we had had car trouble in Oklahoma. We spent a
few days camping in the junk yard (yes, a junk yard) the Bug was being
repaired at. That took a sizable chunk of our money, but undaunted we
journeyed on. As I remember, we were just out exploring The West.
We made it to Colorado. In Boulder I called home and asked my Mom to
wire some money. We spent a week camping at a rest stop outside
Boulder, making daily trips to the Western Union office.
After about five days of no money from home arriving, the gal who
worked there felt sorry for us and gave us $5 to get some food. (We'd
been subsisting on potatoes cooked in a campfire for the past week). We
abandoned the food idea and filled the gas tank. Wow! Gas was cheap
back then!
We headed to Douglas, Wyoming, which my Mom had estimated to be about
150 miles away. It's more like 250 miles. We made it to Douglas on
fumes and a few pennies left in our pockets.
My friend from home who had come out here a few years earlier to work
in the oil field, had left "instructions" for anyone coming to visit,
to ask for him in the bars. They would know when he'd be in. (Are you
gasping? This was not my ordinary way of doing things, but what was a
girl to do)?
The College Inn Bar was the third one I tried (my timid friends stayed
in the car). The nice bartender said my friend would be in around five.
We followed him to his place in the tiny town of Orin Junction, which
was home to one gas station and several mobile homes.
We stayed about a month. I found a waitressing job in Glendo, where
there were two bars, a gas station, a cafe, a post office and about a
fifty houses. There, I made enough money to get back home.
It was during this brief stay that I fell in love with Wyoming. Three
years later I moved to Glendo, where I found that sense of freedom in
the wide open spaces. It was solace for my soul, music to my ears, and
a feast for my eyes.
The color, the texture, the vast distance. It took me years to finally
endeavor to paint it.
The soft gray greens that are almost blue on some days. The mysterious
shadows from bluffs that beckon for a closer look. The wild yellow rose
and riotous, colorful, Chimisa when it blooms in the late summer.
Meadowlarks and crickets in the summer. And outrageous sunrises and
sunsets, from one end of the horizon to the other.
Oh the Heavens
Love Song to Wyoming
18x24
In New Hampshire I was never inspired to paint the landscape. In
Wyoming I can't resist. This month I'm celebrating the freedom we have
in this nation and the freedom I've found to live and paint in this
beautiful, colorful, vast expanse, called home. My sweet Wyoming home.
I put the finishing touches on Love Song to Wyoming this morning and
the paint is still drying as I write. I painted it from a smaller
painting.
I remember hopping in the car to make it to the river before the sky
changed too much. There's a lovely bend in the river, just a couple
miles from home.
From there you can see the color of the sunset reflected in the slow
moving water, like a ribbon threading it's way across the prairie. . .
I have so many painting possibilities in mind for this summer! I can't
wait to share them with you!
Thankful for freedom to live and to paint, till next time,
Ginny
PS This was my theme song the summer I moved here. I had heard Bill
Staines sing it at a coffee house in Putney, Vermont and it carried me
all the way out West.
listen to My Sweet Wyoming Home
"There's a silence on the prairie that a man can't help but feel,
there's a shadow growin' longer now, a nippin' at my heels. An' I know
that soon that old four lane that runs beneath my wheels will take me
home, to my sweet Wyoming home". -Bill Staines from the song, My Sweet
Wyoming Home
PSS The money my mom sent? It never came. She sent it to Boulder City
CO, which doesn't exist. She eventually got it back.
And, in case you're wondering, I've gotten much better at choosing
camping places.
Sent from:
{{FASO_DOMAIN}}
{{AM_COMPANY_NAME}}
{{AM_COMPANY_ADDRESS}}
{{AM_CSZ}}
{{AM_COUNTRY}} Artful Mail by FASO
Learn More about ArtfulMail
unsubscribe from this newsletter