Wyoming, I love you – Stop trying to kill me

Final approach to Shannon Airport was pulling back the curtain on a dream. I didn’t know the world could look like that — clouds cartoonishly perfect and puffy, drifting lazily over hills green as Granny Smith apples. I could make out little specks, which on closer inspection, were grazing sheep. “Nothing in the world will ever be as beautiful as this,” I thought.

Which was true… until this weekend.

It’s not you, Ireland, it’s me. I met someone. Her name is Wyoming.

Everything, even reality, is subjective, i.e., I can’t speak for other people because I’m not other people. Or as my friend Bob likes to say, “We’re all beautiful snowflakes.” I can’t speak for you but for me, the drive from, say, Park City, Utah on up to Yellowstone National Park via U.S. Routes 16/30 and Highway 89 was the best road trip of my life, even with a nasty head cold. (It wasn’t always this exciting, but close).

Existentially, I’m a journey-not-destination guy, with my love of the open road superseded only by – yeah – my love for Wyoming, even though it has tried to kill me. I know you’re thinking: Get out of that relationship, Wyoming is no good for you. You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s complicated.