Something there is about going home, sagebrush and barbed wire, whether thirty years have passed or three, the mountains always in your blood, your collective memory, where wild mustangs run free.


Danes passed through here, and Scots, wayward sons of pioneers, just off the Lander Cut-Off of the Oregon Trail, where the Green River winds lazily in front of rosy cliffs. One camped up, the other down. Only the hardy stayed.
Some journey onward, and some return. The land remains.
All photos and video taken in Sublette County, Wyoming, July 2011, while on a journey home.
Key: Horses grazing at sunset in Marbleton, Wyoming; detail of fence at rodeo; saddle bronc pickup; local photographer angling for the best shot; at the rodeo; leaving the fair grounds; near the Lander Cut-Off; horses grazing above Big Piney; sagebrush and barbed wire; local rancher and philanthropist Marj Guio; split rail along Mickelson Road; the Wind Rivers; white horses at nightfall; there will be fireworks.
Video of saddle bronc riding, Chuckwagon Days Rodeo, July 4, 2011, Big Piney, Wyoming.


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Comments
And fishing the high country streams!!!
And smooching with the cowboys Brokeback style!
Oops, I mean, and hunting!! That's it!! ;D
RATED!!!
Thank you.
My family doctor in MO used to sponsor a rodeo every summer. Doctor, rodeo--what's the connection?
Rodeos produce lots of broken bones.
r
When we traveled through Wyoming I was struck by some intangible quality in every person I met.
"Only the hardy stayed" indeed.
Unique senses of humor as well!
I still have the locally made Wyoming postcards I bought while there, they are too funny.
After seeing this photo of Marj Guio, I know that's how beauty looks when one is older-- that's how gracefully I hope to age.
She's beautiful. I feel cheered. Thanks : )
These are exquisite photos: bare and beautiful, without false sentiment and suffused with a spare poetry.
Thank you and rated, but of course.
Let's just say that the grass here in North Texas is crunchy at best.
Hay is at all time high prices and critter feed has shot up in price.
Your photo essay and poem is inspirational and very idealistic. Nice to read something inspiring instead of the usual gloom & doom.
Thanks again.
Note on the photo of the pipe and cable fencing. Neat photo. A fence job like that is laborious and tedious. Drilling the holes to match and stretching the cable must have been a three pipe problem.
I appreciate all manual labor as I myself have done many a menial job on the farm but would have it no other way.
Thanks