I suppose anyone reading this already knows that one of the reasons this blog exists is not just because I love to read, but because I love to immerse myself fully in reading worlds, to feel like I’m really there. When an author can inspire me to actually visit a place just through their stories, well, that’s the golden ticket.
Thanks to my dad, I was brought up on a steady diet of Western movies and TV shows. As a youngster, I could endure them, but I didn’t see the appeal of dusty, fuzzy, formulaic stories centered, it seemed to me, around horses and guns and saloons. It never occurred to me to read books in this genre, so the screen images I had of cowboys and lawmen and villains and the American West were firmly rooted. Then, sometime in the 1990s, I had a moment. Having unexpectedly finished the only book I had with me during multiple delays at the very beginning of (what I knew would be) a (long and boring) business trip to Houston, I bought Lonesome Dove in the airport. Chiefly because it was nice and fat and would see me through the week. I opened it, fell in, and climbed out a couple days later, blinking and disoriented and gobsmacked by McMurtry’s beautiful story.
I didn’t immediately jump into reading a bunch of Westerns, though. But I did develop a curiosity about the genre that led me to watch the fantastic Lonesome Dove miniseries, and eventually brought me to the Netflix series Longmire, which I watched early last year. I was instantly hooked on both setting and story. It’s a modern Western whose title character, Walt Longmire, is a sheriff in a county with more square miles than people. He is sensitive yet tough, broken yet redeemable, a stubborn, old-school cowboy who has had his share of hardships in life, which he bears pretty much silently. He’s a lawman, so the show’s episodes are crime- and mystery-focused, though the underlying character development is more important than plot. Unlike his bygone Western counterparts, though, Walt is not a complete loner. He’s got a grown daughter and a chosen family and a community of which he’s a crucial part. I can’t call it a “tribe” — although it sort of is, in the modern sense of the word — because a Cheyenne tribe and its nearby reservation figure prominently in Walt’s world; his best friend is a Cheyenne named Henry Standing Bear, their relationship is the source of some conflicts, a lot of humor, and a great deal of warmth and loyalty. The storylines are both timeless and blisteringly modern. All the characters are complex or at least interesting. The drama is heart-pounding and sometimes heartbreaking.
And, oh my gosh, the setting. The prairies. The mountains. The teeny, quirky town of Durant, Wyoming. The ever-present wind along the plains. The enormous sky. The vast expanses of empty highway. The stark, scruffy loveliness of it all. I didn’t want it to end.
When it did, I took matters into my own hands. It used to be extremely rare for me to watch a movie or TV show before I’d read the book(s). I just think your first love can’t be topped, so I read first and generally subscribe to the wisdom of “the book was better.” In the past couple of years, though, I’ve thrown this rule out the window, and I’m glad I did with the Longmire series because it reawakened me to the possibility that Westerns could be awesome. I started on the books almost as soon as the credits from the last episode scrolled by, steadily inhaling their world, which is both eerily the same and a striking contrast to the Netflix show. Craig Johnson, Walt’s creator, is a wonder. Such a great writer and world-builder. Not only did his characters, setting, and stories charm and captivate me, they were able to do so on both page and screen. Part of that is because the author’s love for the place comes through so strongly in both mediums. Even though the series was filmed in New Mexico, it is Wyoming itself that seeps out of the pages and into your heart. It may be our nation’s least populated state, but its sense of wildness, of times gone by, its offering of the simple life and of honest, proud people were the true inspiration for the characters and the stories. Because I was so affected by this “reading where,” I knew that if I made the effort to find it, this Wyoming of Walt, I would be rewarded with a chance to feel all of this again, like the quiet pleasure of finding a long-lost, long-loved pair of worn-in boots and taking a ramble in them.
Having a one-time real cowboy for a lifelong travel companion made it easy to make the case for the trip, so we tacked on four days to a scheduled visit to our son in California and set out on a whirlwind adventure. For four days, we explored, starting in Cheyenne, traveling north through the whole central part of the state, even skirting the Bighorns before eventually turning east toward South Dakota, gaping in wonder at the sights along the way.
I honestly didn’t do much pre-trip research on Wyoming, so there were no plans, other than getting to wherever we were going to stay each night. Which was kind of wonderful. It afforded us a long and winding side trip to Fort Laramie that had us bumping over dirt roads and livestock grates for miles and miles, for example, and it brought us to hidden gems – a reservoir with a campground and beach, a little town with a memorial to country singer and rodeo champion Chris LeDoux and an adorable museum, and gorgeous ranchland so pristinely vast you could smell the sagey hay smell from 50 miles away. So it was complete bookish serendipity when we wandered into the town of Buffalo.
Something about the town spoke to me the moment I got out of the car, and I had barely turned around before I saw it: the”Longmire Headquarters” sign on a Main Street store across the street. As it turns out, Buffalo is the inspiration for the town of Durant, the fictional town in the fictional county of Absaroka, where Longmire is sheriff. (Which, of course I didn’t know because, duh. No research.) The store belongs to Craig Johnson’s wife, Judy, and it holds a plethora of beautiful Western wares, including a ton of Longmire gear and memorabilia. We spent an hour (and quite a lot of money) in the place, chatting with the woman minding the store as a favor to the Johnsons. She shared my passion for the books, so we geeked out about the differences we liked and the similarities we loved between the books and the series. And that’s when I learned what I probably should have known already (except, of course, no research) – not only is Buffalo the inspiration for Durant; it’s also the site each summer of something called Longmire Days, a long-weekend festival that brings thousands to the little town to bask in the Longmire world and enjoy music, events, storytelling, and fellowship with other fans. The author and quite a few of the actors from the series faithfully attend, as well, making it the ultimate destination for anyone who has fallen in love with the characters and story and setting as much as I have.
So here’s the punchline. I’m headed back to Wyoming within a month, this time to purposefully visit Buffalo and experience Longmire Days for myself. It’s shocking to admit I’m that much of a fangirl, but it also feels like having the chance to be part of something special. I’m sure there are as many reasons for others to make this journey as there will be attendees of the event. But I strongly suspect we all will have these in common: a desire to connect with others, a fondness for good, old-fashioned storytelling, a belief that life can be both much simpler and richer at the same time, and a fascination with the ideals and traits that nurtured our country to greatness (and a feeling they still can, and do). I’ll update you, of course, but I predict it will be magical.
It was when I was first obsessing over Longmire and making plans for last year’s visit that I learned the tourism site for the state of Wyoming has the coolest little slogan: That’s WY. It’s kind of perfect. Why has always been one of my favorite words, as I’m a curious person and like to figure out the answer to that question most of all. (I also like the word where, in case you didn’t catch that yet.) That’s WY! is both a proud exclamation of (the postal abbreviation for) a state and an answer that implies, simultaneously, the completely obvious and the highly subjective. It encapsulates for me, in just a few letters, all the wonder and adventure and beauty and history Wyoming stands for, but that you really have to discover for yourself. I was thrilled to see this slogan is still a thing, and maybe I can actually pick up a flag this time!
What would I say to those who question this obsession that had me traveling thousands of miles because of a book series and its imaginary world? And that now has me planning another pilgrimage to hang out in a picturesque mountain town with those who brought it to life and those who are equally smitten?
That’s WY.
