When you think of Wyoming, you probably think of cowboys. But I bet you've never thought of equality! As it turns out this state with a "rough and ready" reputation was the first to give women the right to vote!

It was actually a plan to get more people to the state - more women probably. Actually though I don't think it made much difference. This is still one of the states with the fewest people. But more and more people are moving here to get away from the rush of the city.

Many of the people who settled Wyoming in the early days were tough. It was rugged country and so were the people. They were people who did what they wanted without worrying about what others thought. In some ways, many Wyoming people are still like that.

We spent our first night in Wyoming in the town of Chugwater sleeping in our van. We were parked in the parking lot of a church. The next morning we went to the capitol building. We were probably pretty funny looking because we had slept in our clothes, but we still got to meet the governor, Jim Geringer. He was nice. I found out his wife was from my hometown, Wichita, Kansas. While I was waiting to see the governor I saw Mrs. Wyoming with her crown on and everything. She was very pretty.

Wyoming towns still have a western look to them. We saw Cheyenne and Laramie. After Laramie we took a drive through the Snowy Range. We saw mountains with snow on them even though the weather was hot. At one place we stopped and threw snowballs at each other while being eaten up by mosquitoes. That was a weird feeling.

Probably my favorite part of this state is Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. A lot of Wyoming is kind of flat, but these areas have big mountains. The Grand Tetons are really sharp looking, pointy mountains. I think they look so big because there are no smaller mountains in front of them. The Tetons are part of the Rocky Mountains. We stayed at a KOA not far from them and it was such a pretty view. We also roasted marshmallows for the first time on the trip that night.

I loved Yellowstone National Park. We were there for two days. It has really neat geysers. My favorite one was Old Faithful. I saw it go off twice. My mom took pictures of my dad and me and Collier in front of it. When it went off it was cool, cool, cool. That's all I could say when my mom was shooting video and asked me what I thought about it. Hot water shooting high in the sky! The water was so hot that a bunch of steam came up with it. You could smell it too. Actually all the hot springs and geysers smell kind of funny. We were so close to some of them as we walked around on the wooden platform that they were really stinking. Some smelled like rotten eggs. My mom said it was because of the sulfur.

We also saw paint pots. They're neat. They are like bubbling mud and the make a burping sound when they pop up. I thought they were as neat as the geysers.

We saw a lot of burned trees in Yellowstone. There was a big fire there that almost burned the Old Faithful Inn. I think it happened in 1989. Luckily firefighters and volunteers saved the old hotel.

We didn't see any bears in Yellowstone, but there was a buffalo walking in the road right beside the cars. We also saw a fox and lots of deer.

We had a fly fisherman from Yellowstone put the sticker on our car.

I would like to come back to Wyoming again sometime. So would my parents.

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