Thank you, archy, what a pleasant surprise! I’d love to go and bring my wife and daughters (the younger one is into horseback riding so you can imagine how happy she’d be!) and they all speak English.
I’m sure there’s more than the silly stereotypes I’ve been trained to imagine. More than 40 years ago, I went from N.Y. to Colorado on a greyhound and I found so much kindness, I mean hearts as big as barns as soon as I started moving into “flyover” country that it was embarrassing. Over here everything is so small, populated and full of history that the sight of the spaces you’re used to is at first unsettling.
Tonight instead of arguing and picking fights with strangers, I’m gonna read up about your state.
http://www.thingstodo.com/states/WY/famous_people.htm
The only famous Wyomingite (I had to check - I thought it was “Wymomingan”) I know is abstract painter Jackson Pollock (Jack-the-dripper)...
...and William Buffalo Bill Cody. The latter had the Italian cowboys, called the “butteri” (now defunct) boasting and blustering for years when he took his show on a European tour and lost in a contest of rodeo skills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttero#Buffalo_Bill_and_the_Butteri
A tall tale? Probably. But the man was so beloved in Italy, especially thanks to children’s books, that in 1942 when Italy was at war with America, the publisher invented a new back-story for him, claiming that he was “in truth” an Italian immigrant called Domenico Tombini, born (like Mussolini) in the Region of Romagna. It was a ruse, an out and out lie, which allowed the publisher to avoid the inevitable censorship he’d had have to face with books about an American hero.
William Buffalo Bill Domenico Tombini Cody! Ha!
When you remember that Italy was the land of Spaghetti Westerns for many years, it’s not as crazy as it sounds.
Now I’ll talk it over with my family. One daughter will be visiting her best friend since childhood in Ibiza and the other is planning a trip to Leipzig, Germany (the old lady is from Cologne)... but Wyoming... the place is so beautiful that I’d be tempted to add 4 more illegal aliens to America’s long list!
When you go to Wyoming, be sure to ask your host if he knows anyone who shoots guns there, as you would like to shoot one. You will likely be overwhelmed with invitations. I organized recreational shoots for a number of Japanese engineers and military officers while they were working at Yuma Proving Ground, and they loved it.