Sunday, October 12, 2008

Welcome to Mountain View, Wyoming

If you've read my post from a year ago, you might remember that Mountain View has two major features: Cows and Mormons. Several of the employees at my company own a ranch, have a parent or spouse that owns a ranch, or just work on one part time. Heck, even the President of the Company only works part time in the office, spending the rest of his time tending his livestock.

In addition to the cattle, there's a rather heavy Mormon population out here, which is one of the side effects of living two hours away from the LDS Capital of the World, Salt Lake City. Some of them, you can spot a mile away. They just have a... look to them. Others tend to blend in seamlessly, especially the Jack Mormons.

The town is mostly concentrated within one square mile, with more rural homes, ranches, etc within a radius of about 5 miles. We don't really have a downtown area, just an intersection with a Gas Station, an Inn, a subway that was an abandoned Gas Station when I got here, and my Company.

When I arrived here, the weather was unusually nice. a "Nice October" here, is one that stays above freezing. There is about 4 inches of snow on the ground as I type this, and there may be a little more on the way. Back home, we all hoped for a White Christmas; here, we hope to avoid a white Halloween.

Why do I like this town? First of all, for all the canned reasons that everyone likes small towns: Low crime, sense of community, etc. It's impossible to go to the grocery store without seeing someone you know, and my commute went from 12.5 miles, half of it in city traffic, to 1 mile, the majority of which is driving out of my neighborhood.

Love this town, love these people,... miss being close to stuff. But there's always a trade off, right? Here's hoping for another great year of mountain life.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to read that everything is going well.

Fuzzy said...

Dan!

You still at GW? Can I use the same email?

Anonymous said...

Yep and Yep.