It's Better in Wyoming.

Goodbye, Old Mill Inn .  Even though you haven't served me a decent meal in years, I'll miss you. I didn't know I could feel sadness about the loss of a building in Newcastle.  Corner Bar: gone.  Old high school: gone and gone.  Frank's station: mostly gone.  Old Gerty Burns Elementary: converted to senior center. Somehow, though, the Old Mill must've stood for something, to me, in a way that none of those other buildings did, in a way that I've never even realized.. I dunno why, but I feel a little hole in my heart.

The Core of Discovery page says this about the Gateway Arch: "A visit to St. Louis isn’t complete without standing at its base and playing professional photographer."  Thanks, Core of Discovery, for making me feel like a lemming.  Eff you, man. Saint Louis Front Page reports these additional details about the arch: The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Park was established on the banks of the Mississippi River, on December 21, 1935, to commemorate the westward growth of the United States between 1803 and 1890. Cost for the $30 million national monument was shared by the federal government and the City of St. Louis.  The park features theGateway Arch, designed by architect Eero Saarinen who won the design competition in 1947. The stainless steel structure rises 630 feet high from a 60-foot foundation and spans 630 feet at ground level. Its classic weighted catenary curve sways 1/2" - 1" in 20 mph wind. The Arch weighs 17,246 tons. Nine hundred tons of sta...

sixties in laramie this week, and a tulip poking up in the library flower bed.  that's a good spring break in my book.  here's a picture of maggie shooting the .17 out north of happy jack.  we killed a pineapple can.  maybe we'll make it a saint patty's day tradition.

Several months ago I reserved the Brooklyn Lake Cabin, hoping for another magical ski-in like two years ago . Sadly, this year was a bust. Maggie, her sister Colleen, and I headed out on Friday afternoon, ate some delicious green chili pizza at the Beartree, and then drove up to the end of the road. After 200 yards on the trail, we turned around and headed back to the Beartree for pie. It was a windy bitch on the hill this weekend--gusts up to 45 mph, and wind chills in the ice-crystals-forming-instantly-on-my-whiskers range.  Not to be easily defeated, we headed back up on Saturday morning. The temps were warmer, but the winds were worse. On the way up the hill, we passed pickups, loaded with snowmobiles, already headed back down to the flatlands. Colleen (who finished a 50k ski race last weekend) got blown off her skis. My hands were toasty warm in the new mitts my sis got me for Christmas, but the prospect of a first mile on mostly exposed slopes was enough for us to...