It's Better in Wyoming.

I had been thinking about heading to the Snowies today for a long midday hike, up near Barber Lake or further up toward Libby Flats or somewhere off the gravel that heads out towards Elk Mountain. Instead I was persuaded by my colleagues Carolyn and Meg to bike along a newly-opened section of rails-to-trails by Fox Park. And as a result I discovered a new place to feel nearly alone. For the first hour I only had to share the trail with a coyote who trotted ahead of me for fifty or sixty yards before cutting down into the pines along the trail. Coming back I passed just one person, a woman wearing a bright orange vest who wished me a cheery good morning. In all I pedaled fifteen miles—certainly the longest bicycle ride I’ ve been on in a decade or so. The trail, topped with loose gravel and pitched at a consistently moderate four-percent-or-less grade, managed to feel uphill both ways. I expected to see a moose grazing in one of the beaver ponds along the path, but no luck.

Last Saturday was one of the better days of my life, for no memorable reason. In a year, I’ll have hardly a recollection of the day. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t great. Kaijsa and I drove over to Cheyenne for the Wyoming Book Festival. The Wyoming Libraries Association had rolled out its new ad campaign earlier in the week, and I was able to get more stickers from what I think is a fantastic marketing strategy. Here’s a pic of their take on the classic mudflap girl: At the festival we listened to Dave Romvedt read some poetry and play a couple of songs on the accordion, and we listened to Julianne Couch read from her tour-of-Wyoming-bars book, and we heard Alyson Hagy read from her new novel. Listening to Dave Romvedt, beneath the ‘Poetry Tent,’ with a maroon-leaved tree standing in front of a brick wall across the street from the Capitol, and the sun beating down, and perfectly early-autumn weather, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer start to the morning. Later in the day we caught

In church today the sermon was about worshipping with a clean heart. Tony said, “If you’ve got something standing between you and your brother, take care of that before you kneel to worship.” Essentially that’s what he said, anyway, more or less, though in a few more words. This has always seemed like good advice to me, though hard to follow through on: sometimes it’s hard to know exactly HOW to get the heart clean. Aside from Lipitor, I mean. And, importantly, worship—of any sort—seems a lot more meaningful to me if I can figure out how to do it with a clear heart as well. Lately things have been so misty, confusing, and distracted. Which is part of the reason that church has been so difficult to me these days—I don’t get much out of it because I’m stuck a long ways behind this cloudiness. Anyway, the message made sense, and I’ve been feeling lately that there are some people that I need to get clean with. (And, in some cases: get clean of. But that’ll be a story for another da