Exhausted Ramblings: Installment 5

Day 9:

• a 3 hr. ranch tour took the place of my afternoon walk. it was stellar. critters we saw: antelope, an osprey, wild turkey, a blue heron nesting colony, prairie dogs, western meadowlarks, white-tailed deer, a red-tailed hawk, and 2 st. bernards (belonging to ruthie, our fearless guide/residency manager). geography and history lessons were sprinkled throughout the trip. these lessons were spurred on by the sightings of a petrified tree, 200 yr.old tee pee circles, and an abandoned town. there was lots of talk about coal. we even visited a dang quilt shop in the microscopic town of clearmont. oh, and i totally scored a prairie dog skull.
• after dinner myself and 2 other visual artists opened our studios and shared our work with the other residents. we also had the pleasure of listening to 2 of the writers read some of their work. fantastic experience.
• brain activity overload. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Day 10:

• as i was sitting on the patio of my studio, i had to laugh at how ridiculously beautiful it was outside. wyoming doesn't mess around.
• since being at ucross i have received 2 rejection notices for residencies i had applied for. you would think that being here would lessen the sting. it does not.
• 3 other residents and i went back to the occidental for a beer and another bluegrass hoedown. we were approached by one of the musicians, "you all must be from ucross" he said. "are we that obvious?", i asked. to which he replied, "yes". we had heard of the legend of an old-timer named "whitey" and to our delight we got to meet him. he is 90 some odd yrs old and a dancing machine. he asks all of the ladies to dance and dance he did. i along with the 2 other lady residents politely turned him down for a dance. he leaned into me and said, "i came only half dressed. i forgot my false teeth and glasses." he then turned to the only male resident, mike, and kindly asked if he would care to dance. mike declined. most likely he could not see mike's beard without his glasses but we all like to think that ole whitey is just very open-minded.

The Occidental Hotel Saloon

Buffalo, WY