I bought this poster in 1988 when I traveled out west after high school.
Once I got back to NH, after I thought I’d live forever in Colorado, I framed this poster and it has traveled with me every move.
I’ve always loved the quote, and after spending time in the Tetons, and the Jackson Hole Hostel I get it. Keep Wyoming Wild. Keep all beautiful places wild.
I love the composition of the photo: dark clouds over the Tetons, a little bit of light.
There are no beautiful blue skies and pastoral landscapes on my walls. I’m no decorator but the wall hangings in the countless homes, apartments and condos I’ve lived in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Colorado, Arizona and now Tennessee, all mean something to me. I seem to love dark-ish, black and white photos and illustrations; yet somehow I’m still hopeful.
Tonight, for the first time, I research the writer and the quote and find out this:
“God bless Wyoming and keep it wild” was written in the last entry in the diary of 15-year-old Helen “Becky” Mettler, a Bar B-C guest from New Jersey in 1925. She fell 100 feet to her death in Taggart Canyon.
Ouch.
A girl from New Jersey – out west. Sounds a lot like Pam Houston. A writer who wrote about growing up in New Jersey and couldn’t wait to get out west.
My favorite story from Houston is the one about her dog Jackson in the book: A Little More About Me, the essay Home Is Where Your Dogs Are:
“My dog Jackson died today. He was my first dog, and I bought him at a pet store when he was only eight weeks old. We’ve been together more than fourteen years, which makes our relationship the longest successful relationship of my life.” I get that.
She also writes in this story about a place they lived in Fraser, Colorado. Fraser is a place I know pretty well and it is known as the “icebox of the nation” until a city in Minnesota won a court case. But I digress.
Houston fell in love with the west and wrote about it for years.
I get that, too.
But the poster makes me long to go see the Tetons again. I skied Jackson Hole during my Steamboat stint but haven’t hiked those mountains since 1988. It’s time.
While 2023 is still going to have many racecations, it’s time for some old time hiking and driving the west to see things.
I love the west, the stories, travel, the adventure.
This week, my NH hiking buddy, Ross is out west taking photos of Yellowstone and the Tetons and it got me thinking.
I need to go see these places again.
If I’m not living there I must travel there and be a part of it so I called Mark and made a plan to go there. I told him tonight, let’s go in the next two week or next May. He said without saying it: let’s go next year.
