Travelogue: Out West (WY, CO, TX)

My first stop was Wyoming, somehow beautiful in the immensity of its desolate expanses (most of Wyoming, despite your mental image of Jackson Hole, is flat and bare as far as the eye can see), where I was hosted by my brother Corey, a budding sports anchor at a news station in Casper. It was really fun to see that he has his own commercials and sweet old ladies stop him on the street to give him props. Despite a population of around 50,000, Casper has as many motels as New York has Starbucks (it also has exactly 1 Starbucks) and as many liquor stores as it has motels, but it also has plenty of wild west charm and that type of friendliness you can only find in the middle of nowhere.

From Casper I headed to Ft. Collins, CO, home to the New Belgium and Odell's Breweries, Colorado State University, and a good friend of mine, Ben Smith. Ft. Collins is a great town that might aptly be described, and with no offense intended, as "granola." Bicycles, beards, big dogs, and Subaru Outbacks are almost requisite, and a sandwich shop called "The Cheeba Hut" advertises "munchies." I thoroughly enjoyed both the friendly, laid back attitudes in town and the free beer at the breweries. I was also fortunate to get in four days of skiing in the Rockies and, despite the fact that my leg muscles and knees gave out every day around 2pm, found that I could still "shred the gnar,". A brief stop in Denver to visit my cousins Katy and Gina and I was off to Texas for some relaxing home-time in Seguin.