Ten miles west of Laramie on highway 130 we turned left onto Brubaker Lane. If your frame of reference is British, where "lane" refers to "a narrow way between hedges, walls, buildings," or if you live east of the Mississippi as we do and imagine lanes to be tree-lined country byways, you would have shot past Brubaker Lane without slowing.
But ten miles west of Laramie on highway 130 a little sign points left, so we turned. Brubaker Lane is a hard-packed red-dirt road that heads in a straight line toward the horizon, its rain-damped surface pounded into washboard by truck tires. Driving slowly in our small Hyunai rental, we were impressed with clear, flat line of the horizon and with the ruler-straight road that led toward it.
Five miles down this lane, according to our directions, we would find number 445, our ranch destination. It did not seem likely to us that we would find 444 addresses -- buildings, lanes, driveways, or turn-outs -- prior to 445. Clearly our eastern frame of reference wouldn't work here.
As we drove slowly, bouncing along the miles of ribs, what was immediately impressive to us was the magnitude, the scope, the abundance of both land and sky. In every direction, the land simply opened itself; it both drew us in and filled us up. Perhaps it was our eastern frame of reference again, where horizons are usually close and broken by hills and trees.
How can one be here and not stop to stare?
We did a lot of stopping and staring in those few days. And snapping photographs. We had come in part to see the landscape, which the photographs can preserve after a fashion; but being on the open plains demands more than seeing.
In terms of Stefan's initial objectives for traveling with me to Wyoming -- to discover family connections -- these first views and impressions were more than confirmation that we were on the right track. For him it was all discovery and first impressions. For me, it was rediscovery and affirmation. It has occurred to me that my ability to find beauty in austere places and seasons may come from here.
Emptiness, which is part of this experience, is largely an illusion.
It is also the prominence of objects that in other settings do not necessarily call attention to themselves, that are perhaps muted, insignificant or unremarkable. Or maybe just harmoniously inconspicuous.
Once you see it, a horse grazing at sunrise, for example, is more than horse and pasture: it is an affirmation.
Barren though it may appear, this is not a desolate, barren landscape in the way that, say, an urban street or a blighted neighborhood can be desolate. Take fences as an example. Wooden anchoring posts along a barbed-wire-and-steel-post fence have a certain gravity; they have a visual purpose as well as a practical, physical one, a meaning that is both obvious and elusive.
They are, at the very least, a reminder of human attempts to tame and domesticate and control the high plains.In places those attempts appear reasonably successful. In other place, less so.
One of the conclusions I drew quite quickly is this: What appears to undifferentiated flatness is to some degree just a matter of distance -- the further your vantage point, the flatter the landscape.
What is, in fact, true, is that the landscape has plenty of ups and down, plenty of undulation. But to see it requires proximity; moving close to the ground changes one's illusion about what is barren and merely flat.
Even before we reached our cabin at 445 Brubaker Lane, we knew our journey was a success. To see this landscape is to be inspired. To be there, to be in it is to be possessed, another dimension entirely. Then you turn around for a look. From the other end of that five mile drive, the view back is something else altogether.
Thanks, Jim, for sharing reflections on your trip with Stefan. Your images give life to your prose and vice versa.
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