Wyoming on my mind...

A brief explanation/aside - I know what you're thinking as you read this.  You're thinking that it's been a long time since the last time the Horners blogged.  You're wondering why this is and what could have possibly been going on to keep us from writing.  I'm officially here to tell you that we haven't been doing anything at all.  Since Haley and I both work as teachers, we've both been traveling, training, and being lazy.  And now, on to the real reason I'm blogging:

We officially have three vacations booked for this summer and the first of these was to the least populous state in the US, a land of rolling hills and jagged mesas, and the state where one of my best friend's family friends have an epic vacation house.  That state is Wyoming.

If you've ever checked flights directly in to the state of Wyoming, you no doubt know that there aren't a lot of options and they are usually pretty pricey.  To get around this, Haley and I flew from Dallas and our friends the Moczygembas (no that's not misspelled) flew from San Antonio and we met in Denver, CO.  After making our way through the Hertz line to get our Chevy Traverse, we found some breakfast in Denver at Jack-n-Grill.  We'd seen this place on Man vs. Food when the host attempted to eat a ridiculously proportioned breakfast burrito.  None of us was brave enough to attempt this behemoth, but the regular menu was big enough as it was.  After waddling our way back to the car, we got on the road to the "Forever West" state.

We hit Cheyenne, the state capital, later that morning and made our way to a grocery store.  We picked up a few provisions for our time in Wyoming, grabbed a quick Starbucks coffee, and were back on the road.  On a brief side note, I'm not sure how I lived before I had my iPhone.  As the only one technically allowed to drive our rental car, I was so glad my navigator was equipped with an iPhone and knew how to use it...it made finding things a whole lot easier.

An hour and a half later (or so) we hit the quaint little town of La Grange, WY.  Ready to be off the road, we headed up the small county road to what is affectionately known as "the round house."  It was a beautiful house with plenty of beds and bedrooms.  Out to the side of it was not only a bunk house but also a writer's cabin and a herd of cattle.  We were in the middle of nowhere, basking in God's beauty, playing game after game of Settlers of Catan, and watching terrible semi-marriage related Christian films.

While we were there, we also carefully navigated the "wyobraska" area of our country to get to the lovely town of Scottsbluff, NE.  We visited the National Park associated with the namesake of the town and generally milled about before having a semi-offroad adventure on the way back to the round house.

When our time there was up we headed back to Denver for our night in the "Mile High City."  I showed everyone around the city I lived in for about four years of my life after college.  We stayed in a hotel right off of the 16th Street Mall and took advantage of our location.  To end our trip, Josh and I went to see the movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon while the girls stayed at the hotel and swam at the pool.

It was a great trip, and we were sad to see it come to an end.  I will say that I had a really good time in spite of my original thoughts of "what are we going to do in Wyoming?"  This trip really kindled my thought that each state in the US has something different to offer, and we need to go find it.  Sure no one pays thousands of dollars to go to Wyoming, but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful in its own way.  I wouldn't trade my time there for anything, and I'm really excited to spend time in the future exploring this great nation I call home.

Below are a couple of pictures I took that prove the absolute majesty hidden away in the state of Wyoming.  Both these two and the picture at the begining of this post were taken off the back porch of the round house...enjoy!