My Hometown

So, Road Trip 2010 ended on July 6th as I dropped my mom at the airport in Denver and made the trek across Kansas on my way home. In my last post I promised you a full entry on my "original" hometown (I grew up in Wyoming but graduated from high school in Oregon). So here it is. . . First, a few facts about Dubois, Wyoming.

#1-The correct pronunciation of Dubois is not French. . .instead it rhymes with "Sue-voice."

#2-Sitting in the Wind River valley, rimmed by the Absaroka and Wind River mountains, the first homesteaders arrived in the late 1800's.

#3-Dubois sits at nearly 7,000 ft elevation. And here's a picture of Ramshorn Peak, which is visible from all sorts of scenic overlooks.



#4- The Dubois area is home to the largest herd of bighorn sheep in the lower 48 states, and therefore, the high school mascot is the Ram. (And, yes, we were the Lady Rams. . . I know, I know.)

#5- It's at least 70 miles to the nearest city, movie theatre, hospital, bowling alley, Wal-Mart or McDonald's.

#6-Oh, and Matthew Fox (for those of you who are Lost fans) grew up on a ranch just outside of Dubois.

There are many songs that represent interesting parts of the country where folks were born and raised. . .and, yes, they're mostly country songs. John Mellencamp sang Small Town and I thought the third stanza fit the theme of this blog post:

"Educated in a small town
Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic that's me. . . "

Yep. That's me. Couldn't have asked for a better education at Dubois Elementary School (even if it was "sliding down the hill"), and Dubois Middle/High School. Go Rams! Had great teachers, tremendous coaches, and fabulous friends. It was an idyllic childhood actually. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) I was baptized right here at Wilderness Baptist Church, and daydreams, well, everyone daydreams-right? I used to imagine myself growing up to be an actor, a forensic scientist, even the president.


Anyway, I spent the last few days of my Summer 2010 Road Trip Extravaganza in little Dubois, Wyoming. As you can see, there are around 1,000 folks who live in the Valley of the Warm Winds, approximately 55 miles from Yellowstone Park.

Mom and I spent July 1-5th in Dubois, so we had a chance to celebrate our country's Independence Day in a place where they take our country's freedom very seriously. There are so many young people from Dubois who enlist in the armed forces, that everyone is touched in some way by the wars occurring around the globe. Anyway, the 4th of July parade and fireworks extravaganza are always fun and unique experiences. Here are my pictures from the the day.
First some fun on Main Street before the parade.

This is one of our home-grown heroes. . . Sadie. She gets to carry the flag in the parade and she got married over the weekend--Congrats! (Her mom was my 6th grade teacher.)
Everyone gets wet at the Dubois parade thanks to the volunteer fire department.

A little message from your friendly, neighborhood conservative constituency.

And here's the haul one can take in at the parade. The Search and Rescue folks threw out the fireworks which I found to be an interesting choice. And the rest of the stuff, well, it's your normal parade swag--candy, frisbees, a stuffed moose. (You get the idea.)

The Grand Marshals for this year's parade were some old, dear friends of mine: Orv and Donna Landen. Great folks who watched every one of my high school basketball games and even traveled to Chadron, Nebraska to watch me play when I was in college. Here are their pics from the parade and then one of us from a couple of summers ago. Love these sweet people!




And in the evening you can enjoy the fireworks. I'm not the best night photographer, so here are just a few of the shots I was able to capture.





Finally, let me just show you around my Hometown. Here is a short picture tour of some of the sights. . .






Anyway, I'm leaving out a lot of things I could tell/show you. . . but perhaps I'll be able to fill in the blanks on another occasion.

Road Trip 2010 was a success and I hope you enjoyed tagging along with me on all of my adventures.