Susan Senator

I’m at my hotel in Wyoming. I gave my talk in the afternoon, for the Early Intervention and Education Program of the state department of public health. A lot of educators in the audience; some parents, too. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and the interactions with everyone there. A lot of questions, mostly of the sort: “What would you want an educator to know when dealing with your child?” The people who go into these professions are just amazing the way they care.

At night, some of the attendees asked me to go to dinner with them. It was really fun. We went to an Olive Garden, and then to the mall. I bought real cowboy boots — totally psyched to wear them in Boston! It’s funny how so many things in America are universal, like autism, malls and women who love to shop together; but also, how different. Here there are pick up trucks with gun racks; men with cowboy hats and cowboy boots (how can I get Ned to wear cowboy boots? Very hot.); and that lazy drawl. I overheard one man in the airport — tall, lean, crackly tan, wth a black bolo around his neck — saying into his cell phone: “So yoo won’t marry me raht now, but yoo know how I love yoo.” I thought, “She ought to marry him right now.”

And of course, the sky is huge, endless, and the air smells different — earthy, dusty. I love it.
When I arrived in Cheyenne airport — which is really like a couple of two-story buildings and a runway, and one guy manning the ticket desk and handling bags — I felt like I’d arrived in a foreign country. It was so sleepy, so deserted. I asked the friendly all-purpose desk worker, “Where is the shuttle to the hotel?” And he blinked and said, “Well, I don’t think there’s a shuttle, but I can call you a cab.”

The cab driver, too, was friendly, easy to talk to. He told me about the huge biker gathering here this week — bikers on their way to Sturgis, South Dakota for a big rally. Last week, he said, was the rodeo — Frontier Days, which sounded like so much fun, but the cabbie hates it because “there’s horseshit everywhere.” At the hotel, I asked about dinner and I was told the restaurant was closed, under renovation. “Where can I get a salad?” I asked. “Bout three blocks from here there’s an Outback Steakhouse.” But it was dark and I had no car. “Someone here could probably give you a ride,” she offered. I ordered Dominoes, sent to my room.

The women at dinner told me all about the rodeo, and what they do there, from wrestling steer to riding a bronco who is wild because his testicles are strapped down too tight!

I leave tomorrow morning, back in Boston in time for dinner. “I’m not cooking,” I told Ned. He already knew that.