Day 37-38: Lander, Wyoming

I enjoy figuring out what makes towns tick, asking what's the keystone business here? Most times it's easy. Apple processing. Feed and grain. Cattle. Tourism.

I arrived in Lander in the early evening and was almost immediately struck by certain qualities that I have found to be uncommon in small rural towns. Bookstores, retail health care including optometry and hearing, a family care center, a job retraining center, a children's museum, an arts center, children riding bicycles to the supermarket with canvas shopping bags, boutique art shops, artistic tiles by each sewer drain informing people to be mindful because this sewers drain to the Popo Agie river... In short, Lander is a progressive liberal town in the heart of rural Wyoming. I couldn't see an immediate explanation for it.

In size, Lander is equivalent to Dillon, Montana; but Dillon is little more than a stop on the I5 interstate, offering services to partway travelers. Lander appears to be far more prosperous than Dillon. In quality, Lander more closely resembles Tonasket, Washington; a town where the primary industry appears to be processing apples from the orchards of eastern Washington. Lander and Tonasket have in common a low frequency of franchise businesses. Both towns seems still to own their souls.

In the morning, I stopped for breakfast at the Cooking Crow. It was a weekday, and the place was empty but for a dour waitress who served me with a grim sort of humor. I remarked to her that Lander seemed like a very progressive, liberal town, hoping to spark a bit of conversation. Her response: "Unfortunately." And, "It's those damned NOLS people." I was discouraged from digging deeper.

I dropped my bike off at Freewheel Sports, and explained my situation to Don, the kid behind the counter. Mary had called ahead, and they hadn't received my package of parts, but they were expecting me. I left my bike and Don agreed to call when the parts arrived.

Later, I followed my tingling indie coffeeshop sense to a place called Folklore, where I settled in with coffee and wifi. Toward the end of the day I was approached by the barista, who was curious about my Asus Eee PC. He turned out to be one of the owners, along with his wife. Shane and Jess had been here less than a year, having moved here from Fargo, North Dakota. They seemed like a hippy dippy couple, so I asked him the same question: what's up with this place? It was NOLS, he explained.

NOLS is the National Outdoor Leadership School, with, at its core, a 27-day wilderness training program. Shane described NOLS in intelligent, glowing terms, definitely not to be confused with Outward Bound, as an organization that taught people a broader sense of humanity. NOLS' mission sounded thematically similar to the Brian Utting Massage School that I attended: to bring out the inner adult by teaching a deeper sense of humanity.

It seems that NOLS is well entrenched in the local community, and bicycling around the neighborhood later, I passed a number of their buildings. In terms of real estate, they seem to be on a par with local government. Shane explained that NOLS has long butted heads with the more conservative cattle ranchers who otherwise influence this area. Perhaps the conflict is a good thing, creating checks and balances, though I would point out to the cattlemen, if I could, that Lander is certainly more prosperous than many other towns of its size and consistency that I have seen.

Speaking of bicycles, I got a call from Grant, the owner at Freewheel, letting me know that my package had arrived. I went to meet him and reiterate my situation if necessary; but he seemed to have a clear idea of what he was doing. He was startlingly young. Later, I would learn that he was only 19, had worked at the shop for six years, and taken it over from the prior only in the last year. A lot of young area guys, he said, bought $50,000 trucks and $10,000 welding tools, and then foud themselves in debt with no work. The bike shop was his $50,000 truck, and his dream was paying for itself. After a day of working on my bike he charged me a preposterously low $27. I gave him $50 and still felt like I was cheating him.