Rock Springs, WY

Wyoming has a terrifying type of beauty. The kind that reminds you just how small you really are. The sky is as flat as the landscape around you, when all of the sudden rocks jut out to meet it, breaking the expanse. When I think of "nothing," scenes from my drive through Wyoming come to mind. Nothing grows - just things that were alive long ago, that perhaps are still, but look absolutely dead. Just the rainbow of brown dirt and rock and desert foliage, and the blue, blue sky.

Rock Springs is about 5 hours from Denver; 3 from Salt Lake City. From Denver to Laramie it's a fairly entertaining drive. 250 miles after that there is nothingness as far as the eye can see. Rock Springs is the next dot on the map. What was once to be the largest city in Wyoming, died with the spring it was named after. The sign says population approximately 18,000. My parts manager said 60,000. Quite the disparity. But either way, when the oil and mining companies start laying people off and grounding half their fleet, the town suffers immensly. It's kind of one of those towns that never seems to stop suffering. A hard, gritty, Western paperback novel sort of town that never quite seemed to get along with the 21st century. Perhaps even the 20th.

The best way to discover a place is to just start driving and turn when you see something interesting (but only if you're good with directions - I take no blame in anyone becoming hopelessly lost!). I'll have to wait until it hasn't just snowed buckets to see the wild horses and the gorge. But I did find what used to be downtown Rock Springs, when it was new. It's migrated to the Applebee's / Walmart / metal building shopping mall right off of Highway 80. Which is so incredibly sad. There are funky clothing shops and gift stores, even the fantastic Coyote Creek Restaurant and Saloon (a ways off, but still there). But also forgotten is the shrine to all the miners who have died in Sweetwater county, next to the train station no one uses. I hate it. So much life and history and beauty in these buildings, and we just build new ones, leaving these to rot, waiting for someone to come along and appreciate.