Camping in Wyoming

Moving to Wyoming

Camping in Wyoming - Welcome to Wyoming Who could have known? We checked the chamber of commerce, local economic developers, locals church officials, Wikipedia, and endless other web sites. We even developed at least six cash flow projections related to living in Wyoming. But nothing can prepare a person for the economic times of 2007 in the Southwest part of the state, and the ostensibly impossible housing crunch.

While house shopping, I spent six months of hell in an apartment surrounded by constant cigarette smoke, foul language, fighting in and out of the other apartments and loud television and music seemingly all night long. I learned to survive with Seinfeld DVDs to keep my sense of humor, good food that I cooked and, a floor-standing fan turned on high at night to drown out most of the noise.

Apathy

But not mine. We paid a contractor $1,500 to start a house for us in a very nice neighborhood of Rock Springs (they really do exist). The home was large and to have many modern options and a 1/3 acre lot.

After 8 weeks the builder had done only one thing: piled dirt on our lot where a foundation should have been. With two weeks for the contractor to finish our home or breech the contract, I demanded a refund and got it.

Blessing

Two weeks prior to demanding my money from a disorganized builder (he does build nice homes) I found something else in Green River. It was one of those moments. Even though I could see it was a Fixer Upper, two months later we moved in.

We moved using a 25' truck, a two trailers and mini van filled to capacity. Thankfully we had tremendous help from our Utah neighbors, some of whom drove all the way to Wyoming to assist us. Then, later that night many people from our Wyoming LDS congregation came and emptied the entire truck. Another of God's miracles.

Advantages

Wyoming is a great place in many ways. There is an absence of the conglomeration of goods and services we had in Utah. That change has been harder than we imaged, but we have the following:

Quiet and a lot of it.
Room (space, baby).
Clean air.
Low levels of traffic.
Blue sky - uninhibited by pollution.
Beautiful landscapes once you drive north for an hour or more.

Disadvantages

The area is underserved with goods and services. But, Utah is only 2.5 hours to the west and the internet is in my family room.
Really small LDS primary here. I firmly believe the more the merrier when it comes to honorable peers for my children.
Wyoming takes poor care of its roads in winter. Salt is not used on wintery roads making them treacherous with even an inch of snowfall or less.
Roads in Wyoming close often in the winter lending to the feeling of being trapped.

The Future

Where will we end up and when? That is anyone's guess including our own. "Today" is doctorate time and just simply enjoying a blessed life with each of us together.