great trip to the wild west

 

part 3 - the best part

 

 

the interesting thing about this part of the trip

was that it was in my head

ok, I know what you are thinking, no

it was in my head from a book or books actually

 

when I knew I was going to Wyoming I wanted to read up on the place

I did some research and found that an author I liked - lived in a small town in Wyoming

and had written 3 books of stories about the state

 

Annie Proulx has written several good books, Shipping News, Accordion Crimes, Postcards,

That Old Ace in the Hole and she is well know for Brokerback Mountain

(which is a short story in the first book or Wyoming stories)

 

these stories about Wyoming would be the perfect vacation reading

 

I ordered the first one on-line

 

 

I really enjoyed the first one before I left

 

found the second one at our local good-will (really)

and took it with me  

 

 

I love this photo that is just how it looked if you got off the main road

this was also my favorite of the 3 books

I left if for my friend in Colorado

 

and the third I found in a used bookstore in Laramie

 

 

which I finished and left in the cabin in the mountains

with the card decks and guidebooks left by others

 

I have never really been big on short story collections, but hers are different

each story somehow relates to the other, not a novel  but not separate either

together they paint a total picture

 told with a very interesting sense of wry directness and humor

 

 

the book that made my mind buzz the whole trip though was

 

 

Bird Cloud,  a Memoir of Place

 

first I love a good memoir, give me truth over fiction any day

plus I love property and building

that is exactly what she had done, bought 640 on the North Platte River

a few miles north of Saratoga

 

which was exactly where I was!

 

when I read the first book of stories it said she lived in Centennial, a town just east

of the mountains from Saratoga

I was thinking it was cool that it was so close and I thought I might drive through her town

then to find out that a few years before she had gone back and forth over the mountains

building a house in Saratoga, the places she describes

I was right there

 

 

I asked everyone about her

or I would be reading one of the books at breakfast and people would volunteer information

 

one said she was crazy building out there

another said she was not there anymore and had to leave

(at the end of her book she said she realized she could not live there all year)

 

I wanted to see the place, this stuff of her dreams

I was so close, no one could tell me exactly where it was

but then one young lady said someone was living out there

and no, you could not get close to see the house as there were locked gates

no one was sure if she still lived out there, maybe in the summer someone said

 

we went over to Centennial one day when we were up in the mountains

it was a very small town with only 2 restaurants, only one was open

 

the guy at the post office saw I was carrying Bird Cloud - he said,

you know Annie Proulx use to live here

yeah, I said, that is so cool, I love her

then he said, you won't believe this but she has a stalker

what?

a stalker he said,

He called over to Saratoga post office to leave a message that Annie had mail

and the lady said she could not take it cause there had been some stalker

and they did not trust it was him

about a week later Annie called him and came and got her mail

 

that was the week before I was there

 

 

this is the view up river from town

is that Annie's Bird Cloud bluff on the Platte I can see??

 

there was no way I was going to get even close to seeing her amazing place

 

but

when I got home I searched the internet

 

 

and there it was

 

 

Bird Cloud

a formidable house - wow

 

I got these photos from someone else's blog

 

 

I have no idea where they got them

I was very happy to see them though

 

 

 these are photos from a realty website in 2011

she was selling the place - I thought as much but just found out tonight

 

 

definitely a one of a kind property

 

 

you can see why she fell in love with it

 

 

 wow - check out the island

she talked a lot about the island in the book

 

one site said it was for sale for $3,700,000. in November 2011

then another said $3 million even

 

http://fayranches.com/blog/2011/10/20/wyoming-ranch-for-sale-bird-cloud

 

http://fayranches.com/ranches-for-sale/Wyoming

 



now it is $2,595,000.

who wants to go in on it with me?

  

the writings and the house

of this woman sparked my imagination

through-out my trip

 

 

here is a great interview she gave the Paris Review

on the art of fiction

 

 

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5901/the-art-of-fiction-no-199-annie-proulx

 

a couple excerpts -

 

INTERVIEWER

When you started writing the Wyoming stories, did you feel any need to get acquainted with the tradition of writing about the American West? 

PROULX

Why the hell would I do that? That’s not a tradition. No, I didn’t do anything like that. Writing about the American West is just like writing about the American East or wherever. It’s good to keep shifting around. I’d written about New England, and then it was enough.

 

 

 

INTERVIEWER

And there is that story “The Hellhole,” where at least one portal to the underworld—

PROULX

Yes, definitely. Definitely Wyoming. You can get directly to hell from Wyoming.

 



 

 she should know