Wyoming Roadie Flashback: The City of Laramie

I'm still catching up with images and thoughts from our trip West, which, by the way, we are still currently on... this evening I'm posting from a beautifully restored hotel on Main Street in Deadwood, South Dakota... but, again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Today's pictoral flashback is from just this past Thursday when my in-laws, my wife, stepson and I, first, went touring the city of Laramie, Wyoming. Given the statewide population, its not surprising that Wyoming has only one four-year college, which just so happens to be located Laramie. Wyoming University is homw to the athlectiv team Cowboys, or "Pokes" to their fans, as seen in the street banner photographed in the upper left of this post.

The city of Laramie is a picturesque little "liberal-haven" replete with vegetarian restaurants, coffee shops, outdoor sporting goods stores, as well as, well preserveded historic architectural buildings, all of which we sampled. It is nice to see a community with a seemingly left-leaning energy in the home state of Vice-President Dick Cheney, coal strip mining and open field oil drilling. Click on the small pics below to see BIGGER versions:

A refreshingly common site in Wyoming: well maintained city streets under a backdrop of an everpresent big blue sky.



Directly across from Jeffrey's, a vegetarian bistro we lunched at, is a historic building which had been structurally preserved while being modified for more modern use as storefront (not picured). Lunch at the bistro was delicious (in an "acquired taste" sort of way), the dishes featured some very unique flavoring... had I been thinking (rather than eating everything in sight) I'd snapped a few pics.



Coal Creek Coffee Company, a small coffee shop in town, reminded me very much of the one we go to back home. Anne and I had actually been here before, about five(?) years ago when we last visited her brother out West. It was reassuring to see further evidence that some good things don't change. It was towards the latter part of the afternoon when we stopped so I ordered a delicious decaf, while Anne went with the stronger Houseblend.



Each time we've visited Laramie, Anne and I have both expressed the desire to return for more time to just roam and sample the vibe. Maybe next year, this will become more of a priority, but we are feeeling (I think) the same pull from almost every place we visit...

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!