With Report

 I lived for thirty years with Wyoming as my upstairs neighbor. There were a few times when my family made the relatively short trek out of Colorado to the Cowboy State to take in the splendor of Cheyenne Frontier Days. But the fact that we had our own local rodeo and parade that took place during the summer kept the demand for the two hour road trip low. 

What did get me on the road to The Magic City of the Plains, once I was able to drive myself, was simple enough: fireworks. Colorado's regulations regarding incendiary devices were much more strict that our friends to the north. If you wanted something that would shoot up in the air, emit a shower of sparks, with a report, you needed to head up I-25 to the capital of the forty-fourth state. It was after a number of trips across the border that I began to question why there was this variance in fireworks ordinance. The it occurred to me that the folks in Wyoming were happy to trade the revenue for pop bottle rockets for the potential expense of burning that whole big rectangle to the ground. 

It was on one of these missions to the north that my friend and co-pilot suggested that, since we were in another state's capital, we should take the slight detour into town and check out the Capitol Building.  In the middle of the week, just after noon, we pulled up in front of the statehouse. We had no trouble finding a spot. Right in front. We walked up the stairs, through the front doors, and looked for some signs of life. Nobody to welcome us, no signs pointing us the way, so we continued up the stairs in the rotunda. At the landing, we found two large glass cases. On the left was a stuffed coyote. On the right, there was a stuffed sheep. We paused to take this all in. We figured that we had borne witness to the length and breadth of the history of Wyoming. We walked back down the stairs, creeped out by the silence, and went back to our parking spot. 

We took our several gross of pop bottle rockets and headed back south. 

All of this is to describe how I feel about Liz Cheney losing her party's primary this week. In the last primary in 2020, Ms. Cheney rode a wave of enthusiasm and massive majority t of the vote to win the Republican nomination for U.S. House of Representatives. That was before she found herself on the opposite side of the fence from the former game show host and the guy whom she voted to impeach. In her concession speech this week, she described the situation: “Two years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would have required that I go alone with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I ignore his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our Republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.” So now Wyoming's lone seat in the House is a contest between Trumpish Harriet Hageman on the "Republican" side and Democrat Lynette Grey Bull. The last time Wyoming had a Democrat in Congress was 1978. It's a pretty simple story, one whose end will hopefully be more interesting than the one between the coyote and the sheep. 

Here's hoping there will be fireworks.