It's Better in Wyoming.

I headed down to Greeley this weekend to visit my sister. Turns out, I'm going to be an uncle. A funny thing: I'd never thought about becoming an uncle before. I've imagined that someday my sister and Joel would have kids, but I never realized that, when they did, I'd become an uncle. How odd. But exciting! I'm going to be an uncle!

I think winter may be approaching. Snow started falling Saturday night (after a rainy, lightning-delayed homecoming game in the afternoon) and came down in big downy flakes through midday Sunday. Not much stuck to the ground; it was warm enough that it mostly created a wet muck of leaves in the gutters and a grey denseness in the sky. Today it was warmer--warm enough by ten that I could head across campus in my sweater, no coat--but the air is shifting and the frost, as they say, is on the pumpkin. I'm not sure I'm ready for the new season. I'm optimistic that we're still a good several weeks from bitter cold and inches of winter, but the shorter days are leaving a mark. I feel in my body less energy and a slipping of spirit. Sometimes the briskness revives me, but I wish already for more sun. Tomorrow I'll head to the hills to soak up some late fall rays.

So I admit that it was frustrating for the main streets both east and west of the house to be under construction at the same time. It's hard to make a turn north onto Grand when you're not at a stop light, especially because coming off the side streets the trees really block the view. Sometimes I just stepped on the pedal and said a prayer as I pulled out onto Grand: "Please God, don't let me die by getting rammed into by an old lady in a station wagon who is fumbling in her purse as she's driving down the road and not paying attention to me trying to get out into the street. Please God, don't let me get crushed by some sorority girl driving her boyfriend's truck with the six-inch lift kit who's talking on the phone and not paying attention to the road ahead. Please God, don't let me get hit by a garbage man driving down Grand." That was my prayer, or something like it. But, on the other hand, while 9th St. was blocked off I had the chance...

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...

so I intended to head home this weekend (my childhood home, I mean), and then on to Rapid City for a friend's birthday party. Except the new auto I bought earlier in the day gave me the evil warning light, and I stayed home and waited for the car dealership to tell me that the sensor- jiggy was dead. Now it's all better. I hope. Instead of me heading north, my dad came down to Laramie to hang out with me and we hiked Medicine Bow Peak. This is the first time I've attempted and not completed the hike. Not because we ran out of energy, but because the clouds overhead threatened ominously. Like: "We are thunderheads of doom. All ye who continue upward shall be struck down. You have been warned." Or, as my dad said: "It's not the 'getting wet' that bothers me--it's the sudden drying out that I don't like." Which makes me wonder: would getting hit by lightning really dry you and your clothes out as it passed on through? Anyway, ...