What Kind of Day Has It Been

I had good intentions to update this post this weekend, after I first returned home. I assumed that Saturday, after all my things had been unloaded and stored, that I would spend the evening leisurely contemplating the events of the past five months, and that Sunday morning I would be ready to write it all down. But Saturday evening I was more concerned with making a visit to Chipotle, and Sunday I couldn't quite convince myself to write anything. Also, I had to make another visit to Chipotle.

Despite the fact that my life has suddenly become much less interesting, my brain is saying it's Thursday and it's time to finish this post.

Last Friday I said goodbye to the BLM. You may remember my very first post here, in which I mentioned that on the first day of my internship, my boss was not at work. How ironic, then, or perhaps just fitting, that he should also be absent on the last day of my internship. Dwayne left on Thursday afternoon, after he'd been assured that I'd turned in all my equipment and finished the reports for which he'd asked. He and I never really "clicked," but we did get along well enough, so we amicably went our separate ways. And, in a gesture I've interpreted as a parting gift, Dwayne let me write and send official government correspondence, complete with letterhead, signatures, and pre-paid postage. Cool.

Friday morning our office was nearly empty. I had little to do, since I'd returned nearly everything to Dwayne and had already completed all my work. I whittled away the morning breaking the government rules about internet use in the office, reading and sending personal emails, running pointless Google searches, and looking for job openings. I emptied my desk, returned various borrowed items, took down my posters, and picked out my three favorite deer and pronghorn sheds to bring home. R brought in a chocolate cake (mmm... chocolate cake) and M took me out to lunch (mmm... lunch).

And that was that, really. I had a brief meeting with the field manager, Tulip; an attempt at a proper evaluation. Nonetheless, I was given the opportunity to voice my concerns, and the two of us had a good conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of the program, and all the things the internship could stand to improve. I turned in my keys, bade everyone well, and left.

The next morning, I loaded all my things, vacuumed out the apartment, and made the long drive home.

Several people have asked me what it's like to finally be back, how I felt to be leaving Wyoming. I was obviously enthusiastic about returning home, leaving the tiny, dirty town of Newcastle far behind. My mom asked me recently if my time in Wyoming now seemed a bad dream. So it might surprise everyone, much as it did me, to find that leaving Wyoming and my job with the BLM wasn't quite as easy as I'd imagined.

Don't get me wrong... For the most part, I couldn't stand the BLM's multiple-use land management policies, the bureaucracy, the ridiculous, languid pace at which tasks are completed. Nor could I stand the town in which I was living, the incessant, unrelenting noise from the trains wearing down my last nerve, the ever-present sour smell from the oil refinery, the brooding, suspicious people, the endless stream of hunters.

There were times when I was terribly lonely, when I wanted nothing more than a companion with which to go hiking or camping or visit nearby tourist attractions. I butted heads with landowners, bit my tongue in the office, forced myself to appear neutral in the face of competing interests. There were countless times in the field when I wasn't sure where I was going, when I got lost or turned around. There were times I'd drive into places not knowing whether I'd be able to get out.

I drove on washed out roads and into narrow, steep canyons. I climbed up and down canyon walls and the nearly vertical edges of crumbling drainages. I fought with broken posts and rusty barbed wire. I trespassed far more times than I would have liked. I slipped across hills, slid into ravines, jumped across creeks, and received more than a few cuts and bruises from meeting up unexpectedly with stumps, rocks, and yes, even the ground.

So... why do I feel like I've lost something?

Perhaps because, in the end, the internship represented a lot more than the sum of its negative parts.

Wyoming is gorgeous. Take away the fencing, the train tracks, the highways, get rid of the cattle, the hunters, the far-right-wing, anti-environment, hostile landowners, the oil and gas rigs, the weathered, beaten-down farmhouses... and what's left is incredible. Stunning. Endless stretches of fragrant sage... hundreds of species of flowers, each week a new one blossoming... towering, ancient cottonwoods. Groves of spruce and ponderosa pine...tracts of quaking aspen.... miles of canyon bottoms laced with grasses and gentle rays of sunshine. Every time I hiked off somewhere and dropped out of sight of the man-made world, I felt completely at ease, almost deliriously happy.

There were good people, too. Ally, who willingly works for the BLM full-time. Neela, who runs the Weston County Humane Society. Amanda, who came to walk the dogs there nearly every single day. Steve and Bob Carter, whom I visited with several times. David, who doesn't own a phone but was more than happy to show me around his property when it came time for me to trespass there. The Mills, who unlocked gates for me more than once. Paul, who was always grateful when I gave him a courtesy call. Ed , an absentee landowner who called me once from Iowa to warn me of a particularly temperamental bull on his property. Perino, Christensen, Simmons, and Popham, graciously giving their permission for me to traipse out on their land every week to look for grouse. Oil Roustabout Guy, who I often ran into and chatted with on Fridays when driving out to find 45. And of course, Russell Davis, who very nearly restored my faith in humanity.

And, aside from the people I met and the nuances of my job is this: my five months in Wyoming provided me a great deal more responsibility, flexibility, independence, and freedom than I've ever had. I spent nearly half a year entirely on my own. I saw things that most people will likely never see, drove on roads most people will never drive, traveled to areas few people have ever traveled.

As I made the drive back home, rain lashing down on my windshield, I surprised myself by thinking wistfully of the places I'd visited over the course of the summer... roads I'd taken, creeks I'd crossed, hills I'd summited, drainages I'd followed... places where the radio signal for NPR was good... places where the radio signal for NPR was bad...places I'd found my grouse... places I'd stopped just to be... places where I wondered "WTF am I doing out here?"... places where I'd never felt better. And as I thought back over everything I'd done and everything I'd seen and everything I'd felt and every place I'd been, I found myself wondering, just what kind of day has it been?