Welcome to Casper

Well, the moment that classes were done and grades were turned back in, I hopped a plane from the South to Casper, Wyoming in preparation for heading  home for Christmas, and I'm hanging out in my in-laws' house.  Right now, Casper is cold, windy and snowy-- just like I like it:

 

This is a panorama view of Casper Mountain taken from Wyoming Boulevard, just past the new Wal-Mart.  And as usual,  it's teeming with wildlife.  When the plane was landing, I noticed that the new snowfall was creased over the surface like an elephant's skin.  It wasn't until the plane got closer to the ground that I could tell that they were antelope tracks, hundreds of them. 

The antelope, as you can see, are thriving.  Anyhow, Casper, as it turns out, has a little bit of news: progress is coming to central Wyoming!   

The Windy City of Wyoming is now the home of a wind farm!  These were apparently put in in earlier this year.  This little group of turbines is just northeast of town, towards Evanston, and there's apparently a larger group just in the distance as well.  It's surprising that it would take somebody this long to put two and two together and figure out that a place with wind like Casper might be a good place to put a wind farm...

Anyway, here's the other little bit of Casper news:

Yep, that's right: Casper, WY's longest, continuously-running house of ill repute has officially closed its doors.   There was finally a raid earlier this year and the ladies were rounded up and sent out on the town train, so to speak.  For most of us, it signals the end of an era; it had been running on the edge of the law, not too far from the airport, since most of us were kids. 

And, in Matt Shepard news, I noticed something interesting at the mall when I got here.  Judy Shepard's biography, The Meaning of Matthew, was prominently displayed in the front of the book store at the mall here in Casper.  It was on one of the feature shelves on the right-hand side of the shop next to all the bestsellers. When I went by there yesterday, it wasn't there anymore.  The only copies in the store were buried on the bottom of the shelf in the "Social Sciences" section. 

Now, I don't know if they sold the copies on the feature shelf or not and just didn't put more out, but the only copies I saw in the bookstore before were in the front.  So, did they just not put any new copies out, or did they get complaints and they buried the book?  I really can't answer that. 

In any case, it's good to be "home" regardless.  I won't be headed back to my home stomping grounds for another few days yet.