Jackie Borchardt

Wyoming is the first place I’ve lived where the heat index is usually below the air temperature. Example: Right now it’s 79 degrees, feels like 78. The sun shines and a small breeze blows 90% of the time. The average temperature for the summer was likely between 70 and 80 degrees. At night it dips down into the 50s and 60s. If I had a porch, it’d always be perfect porch-sitting weather.

90 degrees, perfect day for tubing on the North Platte River. (Photo by Dan Cepeda)

There have been 95-degree days. I avoid them by running in the mornings and evenings and soaking up the way-too-cold AC at work. The hottest temp I ran in this summer was 70 degrees. 70 degrees!! You bet I was dying from the heat. Even when it’s 90 degrees, I’ll still walk down to the library or to the corner store instead of hopping in my car. Usually I leave the pool or beach because it gets too hot. This year, I left because I got bored.

The warm weather we’ve had (I refuse to say, “It’s hot” after living in New Orleans) hasn’t been fun for people without AC. I understand that because the AC in my Corolla is no better than those personal mini fans.

My apartment doesn’t have air conditioning. Or fans. Actually, my electric bill is about $2 cheaper in the summer because I’m not running a space heater.

Even on those 90-degree days, I routinely change into sweats after work because I’m — gasp — cold. Basement apartments have their disadvantages: little light, spiders, stuffy without a way to circulate air throughout. Those same disadvantages (except maybe the spiders) make my place a perfect summer hideout.

A porch would be nice.

If this post made you pine for Wyoming and want move west. Don’t… it will be snowing by the time you get here.

Salt Creek Country Club is a nine-hole “pasture golf” course in Midwest, Wyo. (Pop: 400ish), about 40 minutes north of Casper.  Pasture golf pretty much explains it — brown grass, brown dirt and brown sand “greens.”

Tee-ing off from the ladies’ tee. Yes, the sky was this blue in real life.

And prairie dog holes.

Lots of holes. Between the four of us, we only lost ONE ball!

Josh, Will, Josh and I played in the Salt Creek Days golf scramble Saturday. Being nerdy journalists, we named our team the Nut Graphs. For $25, we got all we got breakfast, lunch, all the beer/water/soda/Gatorade we wanted and a door prize. Oh, and nine amazing holes in the middle of oil fields.

ATVs and four-wheelers are better equipped for the course than golf carts.

Just picking up my ball in the rough. Josh said rattlesnakes had been spotted in this area.

This woman was forcing everyone to take a shot before hole No. 1.
We started at hole No. 3, so by this point, she’d had a few herself.

Sand greens require raking.

I won a mini cooler and a denim shirt with an oil company logo. The cooler felt heavy, so I opened it and found melted ice and cold Budweiser. Bonus!

Josh won a sand wedge, which he couldn’t take on the plane back to Missouri. We scouted possible trades. I wanted binoculars or a mini DVD player, but those people clearly weren’t letting go of their new possessions. Then the guy next to us won a 10×10 ft gazebo. He didn’t know what he’d do with it, so he traded Josh for the club.

And now I have a 10×10 ft gazebo in my trunk.

Last time I floated the North Platte with Carol, our floats stopped floating. The old-school innertubes deflated about an hour into the trip, and we ended up walking a mile through neighborhoods and on the bike path back to the car.

We made sure this time not to repeat our prior experience. We rented a raft. With oars.

The yacht seated 12 (we were 6) and included a cooler to hold beverages, snacks and dry clothes. The heavy-duty sides protected us the few times we bumped into cement bridge supports.

I got to row!

We floated about six miles down the river, which included the whitewater adventure park.

Rapids!

The last time I rowed anything was November 2003, before the fall crew season ended and the Genesee River froze over. I liked rowing but didn’t like how cliquey the team was. It was college — time to branch out and meet all sorts of people. And I joined the newspaper, which cut into 5:30 a.m. practice on the morning the paper came out. Although I stopped in between seasons, I still consider it the only commitment I’ve ever quit.

“Rowing” the  raft made me remember why I used to like it. Rowing is hard work that looks easy when it’s done well. I loved getting into a rhythm — slipping the blade in the water just enough, reaching forward and pulling with one clean swoop to glide across the water — and repeating it 2,000 meters at a time.

Last weekend’s outting can hardly be compared to competitive rowing, but it was a little reminder that it’s something I could return to someday.

I’m still recovering from my mom’s visit the weekend before last.

There’s a lot to see in this huge state and a couple hours in the car can take you somewhere completely different from where you were. Mom was here 4.5 days and we put 750+ miles on my car: Casper -> Guernsey -> Cheyenne -> Fort Collins -> Cheyenne -> Casper -> Buffalo -> Sheridan -> Casper.

In front of the Indian Village, with our new hats. [Cheyenne Frontier Days]

I drove down to Guernsey for an assignment on Friday and Mom met me there. We drove to Cheyenne to walk around Frontier Days. KISS played that night and the people watching was excellent. On the way out, we bought cowgirl hats and rodeo tickets. We then drove to Fort Collins because we didn’t think we’d find a hotel room in Cheyenne (and because I needed a shopping/Whole Foods fix).

We watched Frontier Days’ opening rodeo — Mom’s first. She enjoyed it except for steer roping, where the cowboy ropes the steer by the horns and yanks it to the ground. I could explain events to her because of all my rodeo experience.

We spent Saturday night in Casper and left Sunday morning for mountains. The Big Horn Mountains are a small spur off the Rocky Mountain chain and begin about two hours north of Casper. I drove so Mom could stare at mountains because that’s what she does when she’s behind the wheel too.

Big Horn National Forest

We hiked about 2.5 miles in the Big Horn National Forest just south of Cloud Peak. We stayed the night in Buffalo at The Occidental Hotel, built in 1880. The hotel doubles as a museum. Famous people such as Teddy Roosevelt and Buffalo Bill stayed there. We stayed in the Madam’s Suite in the back on the first floor, former home of the bordello’s madam and the cheap whores. She would have been on the second floor but weighed too much to walk up and down stairs.

Occidental Hotel lobby

We saw a movie and stopped at the renowned Century Club saloon. We only had one drink and went to bed early. Mom brought a cold/sinus infection with her and I was starting to feel a head cold coming on.

The plan was to wake up early and drive back to Casper. I woke up at 8:30 still not feeling 100%. After coffee and animal crackers from the hotel pantry, we headed further north for breakfast in Sheridan.

It was hot, like 92 degrees hot, so we went home and lounged in my cool basement apartment. And then she left.

Mom was my eighth visitor to Casper in less than one year. Eight! I thought moving to Wyoming would mean no one would ever visit but so far, more people have visited me here than any other place I’ve lived. Well, except that one time all my friends drove to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

Now that I’ve gotten over the loss of my blog pages and comments (and finished off the rest of the ice cream) I’m ready to update.

Two weeks ago (two weeks already!) my friend Cat and her fiance Kyle were married on a farm outside Kansas City. The weekend felt like a destination wedding for me. I arrived late Wednesday night. Cat took me and our friend Sarah, recently stateside after a year in Senegal, to a large suburban mall. Cat left Sarah and me to wander the mall while she waited to get antibiotics.

Talk about culture shock, for both of us. It was the largest mall I had been to in a year. Sarah hadn’t been in a mall period. Clothes, fast food, SO MANY PEOPLE = sensory overload. We got lost in Dillards — turns out they had a second store just for women’s clothes and shoes across the mall. The food court had 20 different options for lunch and I went for Japanese (don’t have that here!) and Sarah appropriately chose orange chicken.

After the mall, we left the city for the farm to start setting up. Chairs had to be taken from the barn to where the ceremony would take place behind the larger of two houses on the property. The wedding party and family stayed in the houses.

The wedding was the perfect reason for a mini-reunion with great grad school friends who traveled from as far as Africa, San Francisco, D.C. and Wyoming.

(All my pictures are on a disposable camera that probably won’t be developed for a few years, so this was borrowed.)

Cat and Kyle did most of the decorations themselves, so every part felt like it belonged to them. Name cards were personalized bottles of Jones soda. The dance floor was lit with white Christmas lights. Champagne was swapped for lemon-ginger infused Polish vodka.

Because it was 100+ degrees with the humidity, it really felt like we were back in Missouri again. I had a hard time with the heat and humidity. I ran with the groom one morning at 7 a.m. and we were drenched in sweat just walking to the road. While setting up, I had to step inside every half hour or so. I drank water like crazy and still plumped up enough that my bridesmaid dress (that fit perfectly when I packed it) almost didn’t zip up.

It’s hard to believe I lived Midwestern summers all my life and in Louisiana last year. Winter here might be hell at times (or for a long time), but it’s worth it for the dry mountain air and cool summer nights and mornings.

According to the second tech support guy I talked to, BlueHost rebooted some servers and WordPress databases were messed with.

When I logged in yesterday, I got an error message saying there was an “Error establishing a database connection.” I tried repairing it myself, but no problems came up.

When tech support restored from my latest backup (last week), my blog lost formatting, a half dozen blog posts, comments, categories/tags and all pages including my linked portfolio. Categories can be added (a pain to go through every post) but the comments, most of which were encouraging, are lost.

I have the photos for the missing posts and might be able to collect the text from friends who subscribe via RSS or e-mail.

In the meantime, I’ll be drowning my sorrows in ice cream a blueberry and banana smoothie.

Last week was fair week in Natrona County. The city desk split up the week’s events and I volunteered to do Monday and also the parade because I knew I would be gone later in the week. And because I love the fair.

Monday was a slow day at the fair, but I got a crash course in rabbit showing. I now know about fur types and colors, average weights for breeds and how to check ears for ear mites. I could also tell the difference between kids who raised rabbits to compete and kids who competed with rabbits they raised.

Tuesday was Parade Day. The city shuts down for a parade. People get the day off work and bars set up tents for day-long parties. I, like everyone else at the paper, had to work.

The day started with the Casper Chase 5K. The race began two blocks from my house and I figured I wouldn’t be able to get in and out of my apartment before the parade. (I was right.) After the race, I ran home, showered and walked downtown to the parade. Another reporter drove his antique car in the parade and invited me to ride along and get a different perspective.

We rode behind Miss Rodeo Wyoming.

I gathered a couple other perspectives and wrote my parade story as four short scenes. It was nothing groundbreaking, but I thought it more fun than a summary of events with a handful of soundbites thrown in. And I didn’t use the word “Casperites” once. That’s an accomplishment.

Tattoo parlor float

Tuesday was also my only chance to go to the fair, so we went after 10. Fair food was enjoyed — funnel cake, curly fries, lemonade. Sadly, the fair lacked cheese curds and the corn stand didn’t dip the cobs in melted butter. I did add a new item to my “tried it” list — a cartwheel. A hamburger patty is topped with cheese, battered and deep fried. It tasted like a cheeseburger topped with chicken finger breading. Delicious.

We didn’t ride any rides but walked up and down the midway — easily the brightest spot besides July 4 fireworks.

(cell phone Polaroid shot)

Maybe it was the Mormon pioneers I met last week or that everything in Casper was closed all weekend, but I decided to get in the car and head west this morning.

I drove west on Wyoming 220 through Alcova and stopped at Independence Rock.

Oregon Trail II, a major upgrade from the original.
If you have time to kill, you can play it online — “music” and all.

This is semi-accurate. Wagons have been replaced by minivans and trucks at the rest stop constructed in front of the rock. Oh, and the Devil’s Gate/Independence Rock/Sweetwater River arrangement is a little confusing.

Thousands of pioneers stopped at Independence Rock on the trail west and carved their names into the rock. The “Independence” part came from the goal of reaching the marker by July 4. Most of the names have disappeared but several can be clearly seen, especially on the south side.

The whole thing is about 1,900 feet long, 700 feet wide and 130 feet high. The nice path around it is just over a mile long. After a quick walk around, I headed further down the road to Devil’s Gate.

The Sweetwater River cut through the gorge to form a gap 30 feet wide at the bottom but 300 feet wide at the top. Pioneers didn’t go through this passageway but went around it. I drove to see some Oregon Trail wagon ruts but couldn’t get a good picture because they’re on private land.

But I did get a good look at this gal.

Lots of antelope and deer out today.

I’ve lived here 11 months — not yet a resident so it’s still OK to be a tourist, right?

First and most important — we finished the half marathon. We raised over $4,000 and did it injury free! Although we were a little sore walking to dinner, leaning on each other to get downhill and praying we never get arthritis that bad.

On Thursday we watched the Cubs/Mariners game at Safeco Field. The park was super nice, with terrific views all the way around and an excellent beer selection. I grew up going to games at Wrigley so anytime I’m in one of the “new ballparks” I’m amazed at the amenities and that I can go a whole game without someone spilling beer on me. We got our money’s worth — the game went to 13 innings and the Cubs finally pulled it off in the end.

Terrible, terrible seats.

After a warm-up run Friday morning, we walked around Pike Place market, down to the race expo and then to the International District for lunch. We ate at the Phenom Penh Noodle House where the owner showed us how to eat like the Cambodians do. We met with our Team in Training coach to go over the course and race-day information. The runners from St. Louis and Columbia ate a pre-race dinner together with the other 800 Team in Training participants. The whole group raised over $2 million for the race! We heard the parent of a cancer patient and running writer John Bingham speak — tears and laughter.

Then it was back to the hotel for bedtime — at 9 p.m. However, I did not sleep at all well because my throat kept bothering me. When the alarm went off at 3:50 a.m., I had already been up for 30 minutes. We loaded the bus for the start line at 4:15 a.m. and arrived with 2 hours to kill.

4 a.m. smiles

Thank God for the 24-hour Starbucks (and its restrooms) down the street. I got my coffee and we ate breakfast. Then we got in one of the portopotty lines behind two people who were making friends over their divorce stories. Man, were we ready to run after an hour of that.

One-third of the pre-race port o potty line

The course wasn’t too bad. There were a few hills but they didn’t stick out. We stopped for a second to stretch at mile 7 and my knee started hurting when we stopped. The course was fun, lots of water and a stretch on an interstate offramp leading to a downtown finish. We finished in 2:32, impressive considering neither of us had run more than 10 miles before and Josh averaged a 12 minute mile for that run.

It took us FOREVER to get our snacks, foil cape and beer so we could walk back to the hotel. Once back, ice baths, soccer and the best tasting Subway of my life were in order. I haven’t been able to enjoy Subway since before my middle/high school served it every day for lunch. This sandwich hit the spot, especially since the post-race snack line didn’t include any protein. Bagels, oranges, rice chips, granola bars… no chocolate milk or anything like that. And the bagel made me sick. Luckily, the Team in Training booth made PB&J to hold us over until we could eat the best Subway evar.

Are we there yet?

We recovered and drove to the Red Hook Brewery in Woodinville to meet a fellow education reporter and her family. Food, beers and stories were shared. The sun had come out by then — perfect day. Somehow we had enough energy to play video games at the Team in Training party and eat a long, leisurely dinner at the Steelhead Diner, lit by a just as leisurely setting sun. Aaaaand we were asleep by 10.

We ate breakfast at Cafe Presse, walked around Capitol Hill to stretch sore muscles and watched the exodus to downtown for the Pride Parade.

And then I got sick. Itchy watery eyes, runny nose, etc. I was that girl who didn’t take off her sunglasses in the airport or on the plane. Movie star? Hungover? I wish. I couldn’t keep my eyes open longer than a minute at a time. Thankfully, I got on an earlier flight and drove in to Casper at midnight instead of the planned 2 a.m.

I made it home safe and sound, but a bunny crossing the road about 20 miles outside of Casper wasn’t so lucky. I completely plowed over the sucker at 85 mph — my first roadkill. It gave me a much-needed wake-up call to get me home. Thank you, bunny, for your sacrifice and for not being an antelope.

I can put a new (and my only) notch on my rodeo belt.

The College National Finals Rodeo took place in Casper last week. I wrote a feature story and helped cover three of the night performances for our live blog. On my second night, I took some video with our new handheld camera and posted them to YouTube and in the live chat. People loved the video and I did more on Saturday night. They’re all still up on my YouTube page with the nickname I chose back in high school. (YouTube, if you’re reading this, please allow people to change their user names!)
Clint, our high school sports coordinator, did most of the play-by-play and I covered when he looked up stats. I also tried to pepper the blog with as much color as an amateur rodeo announcer could. Goats were our favorite, hands down.

Steer wrestling

The rodeo blog wasn’t the most popular of the sporting events in terms of hits, but on the last night we had more than 100 comments from people listening to the live audiocast and following our blog. Two of the comments were from the mother and grandparents of one of the contestants who we posted video of. They were in Texas and couldn’t make it to Wyoming.

That, I told Clint, made all the scrambling worthwhile.