Wyoming has an almost over-abundance of “natural” wonders ranging from Yellowstone National Park to the vast Red Desert. Plus the towering Devils Tower and the even more towering Teton Mountain Range.

         My new book, which comes out the end of November, is an attempt to document these “7 Greatest Natural Wonders + 33 Other Fascinating Places.” 

         But what about our man-made wonders?

         Maybe we should do a book about that? If so, I am going to need some help from readers as to what would qualify as the state’s “greatest” wonders created by man.

         At first glance, a person might assume we are talking about coal mines and oil wells, but this topic entails more. A lot more.

         It might make sense to generalize the 7 wonders into categories rather than specific places.

         For example, my first wonder would be man-made evidence of the earliest occupiers of our state – those indigenous folks who left quite a record for us to see.

         We have walls of petroglyphs that go back 11,000 years. We have ancient villages over 4,000 years old. Wyoming even has a place known as “America’s Stonehenge,” the mysterious Medicine Wheel high in the Bighorn Mountains. How ancient is it and what was it for?

         Randy Wagner reminds me that the second oldest could be the Oregon-California-Mormon Trail across the state. I would want to lump “all roads west” into this category, which up to the present would also include the Lincoln Highway (U. S. Highway 30) and the present-day Interstate highway system.

         All roads led west in the early days of our country and all chose to cross Wyoming. This occurred in our state, because of that wondrous notch in the mountains known as South Pass. Because of that gap, our country became a place that stretched from sea to shining sea.

         There are other historic trails like the Bozeman and the Bridger Trails. And how about the early highways over the mountain passes?

         Third choice seems obvious – the Union Pacific Railroad. There was “Nothing Like It In The World,” according to the wonderful history by Stephen Ambrose. It crossed Wyoming shortly after the Civil War. We are a railroad state with another huge impact by the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe. We cannot omit the huge railroad development hauling coal out of the Powder River Basin.

         Fourth choice could be big dams. Wyoming has a great many of them, but the biggest in the world when it was constructed, was Buffalo Bill Dam west of Cody in 1910. Let’s also add all those huge irrigation projects around the state plus the reservoirs.

         Fifth would obviously be our amazing energy industry, which started with an oil seep bubbling to the surface south of Lander. Today our state leads the country is production of coal and uranium and is second in natural gas. We are also the windiest places in the country.

         Energy is a very big deal here. The Jonah Field near Pinedale has as much energy in it as the Saudi Arabia oil fields.

         And our large electricity generating stations deserve mention, too.

         Sixth choice would have to be tourism infrastructure with a special emphasis on those old Yellowstone hotels, the lodges in Grand Teton Park and even including the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, known as the “Smithsonian of the West.”

         Our final “wonder” is the surreal killing machine known as Warren Air Force Base at Cheyenne. At one time, there were more nuclear missiles under control of that base than anywhere on earth. In the history of the world, it will be remembered for that dubious statistic.

         If those are the big 7, then, you might ask, what about the following:

-      University of Wyoming

-      State Capitol in Cheyenne

-      Pioneer ranching operations

-      Early-day forts

-      Indian reservations

-      Vast trona mines west of Green River, early gold mines at South Pass City and Bentonite mines

-      Today’s gigantic distribution centers in Cheyenne

-      The new computer complex near Cheyenne

-      On the historical front, how about the first telegraph line which came through Wyoming?

-      Mountain man sites

-      Wyoming’s cities and towns and their infrastructure

-      Amazing roads like the Chief Joseph Highway

-      The Shute Creek plant near Kemmerer and all the pipelines and electric lines leaving the state

-      Jackson Hole Ski Resort

-      Giant bronze statues such as Lincoln on I-80

That pretty much covers my list. What do you think?

         There are times when our high plains of Wyoming can take on a lunar appearance. This is when a snowstorm falls and the wind blows the snow to and fro, leaving long stretches of near white.

         Sometimes the snow will have dust mixed into it.

         And if you are out in this kind of landscape with the wind blowing, you sometimes feel like you might just as well be on the moon, you feel so isolated.

         Back in 1971, I encountered just such an appearance. And I took a photo of it.

         The scene was a lonely hunter, dressed in orange, walking alone across what seemed like a huge lonely moonscape just south of Jeffrey City in the vast Wyoming Red Desert.

But what made it most interesting was that was a man, who really did have experience walking on the moon. It was Astronaut Eugene Cernan. He was in Lander for the annual One-Shot antelope Hunt and, as it turned out, he was the last man to have walked on the moon.

         That made that photo unique and special.

         Two things brought those thoughts to mind recently. One was the recently-completed 2012 version of the One Shot event. The other was the death of the first man of the moon, Neil Armstrong, which occurred about a month ago.

         I was chief photographer for 30 years and the historian for 20 years of the One-Shot. Seeing astronauts here in Lander had became almost routine back in the 1970s.

         Lander has seemingly been a Mecca for them during two different periods of the last four decades.

         The One Shot is known worldwide as the Super Bowl of Shooting Sports. It is hosted by our governor and besides astronauts, it has hosted professional athletes, politicians, movie stars, captains of industry and international VIP’s. It is held in the middle of September each year and, in the mind of us Lander folks, sort of makes us the center of the hunting universe, at least once a year, anyway.

It was 1964 when Wally Schirra was our first astronaut competitor. Followed in 1967 by Deke Slayton, Frank Borman and Gordon Cooper. Slayton become our biggest booster, though, and continued to send a team almost each year to compete.

         Biggest year, in my mind, was 1974 when a team of U. S. Astronauts competed along with a team of Soviet Cosmonauts. They had been training together in preparation for their historic link-up of space vehicles above the earth, which was scheduled to occur.

         When that link-up later occurred, I wrote a local headline that read: “Astronauts and Cosmonauts hold One-Shot Reunion in Space.”

Other astronauts who competed over the years included Tom Stafford, C. C. Williams and Rusty Schweickart in 1967, James McDivitt, R. W. Cunningham, and Bill Anders in 1969, Ron Evans and Jack Lousma, who joined Cernan in 1971 and Jim Lovell, Joe Engle and John Swigert in 1972. Those Americans in 1974 were Dave Scott, Joe Allen and Stuart Roosa. Werner Von Braun also participated.

Astronaut teams almost always won the competition. These mild-mannered, ordinary-looking men (most were about 5-10) had unreal reflexes and, as could be expected, performed very well under pressure.

Old-timers will recommend a funny comic named Bill Dana who first started coming to the One Shot in 1967. He was famous for his hilarious imitation of an astronaut named Jose Jimenez. Today that routine would be racist and very political incorrect. But he just added to the astronaut lore of the events.

Other flying heroes like Chuck Yeager, Jimmy Doolittle and Joe Foss were regular fixtures in Lander each September for decades.

         Two more teams of Shuttle astronauts came later in the 1970s and then the golden age of astronaut participation seemed to end, at least from the One Shot point-of-view.

         But then a few years ago, NASA discovered the first-rate expedition leadership training skills being taught by the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander. And here came teams of Shuttle astronauts to learn and train here.

         Pretty rare to have folks from a tiny town in the middle of a tiny state to have the chance to deal with our nation’s space travelers.

         The death of Armstrong and recent One Shot activities sort of brought back some interesting memories of these most interesting of all our American heroes. 

         At a recent Rotary Club meeting, contractor Trey Warren told harrowing story of needing to use bear spray on a sow grizzly on Togwotee Pass.

         He was scoping out some X-C ski trails when he encountered a big sow with two cubs. The sow roared, kicked up dirt as she charged up the hill at him.

         He stumbled back, pulled out his bear spray, and doused the air between himself and the oncoming bear. The bear stopped. And retreated.

         Trey was stunned and relieved at the sudden turn of events. Then his silly dog chased after the sow, barking. Luckily the dog returned safe to the shaken Trey.

         After he spoke, retired architect Ken Richardson asked for the mic. “I think we saw the same bear,” he said.

He and his wife Anne were hunting mushrooms in an area about five miles where Trey had his event, near the Breccia Cliffs.

Ken was down in a gully when Anne yelled that a bear was coming. It was a sow with two cubs. They both grabbed their spray and met at the roadway. They backed up slow down the two-track road to their pickup.

         The sow headed down to where Ken was picking mushrooms.

         Interesting coincidences and some pretty good luck for both of Trey and Ken.

        Whistlepig? - I have a favorite rock chuck (Whistlepig) story but it sort of pales compared to one by Tom Cox.

         Tom, his daughter and friends were hiking over a high pass near Medicine Bow Peak.  It was a tough slog for Tom, who is almost my age, but they finally got to where they had parked a car a day earlier.

         After driving back to their camp, their dog went nuts next to that car.

         Ultimately, a stowaway rock chuck climbed down out of the engine compartment and wandered around.  Every time the dog barked the Whistlepig would rush back up into the engine compartment.

         I would like to say that they called the Game and Fish and they trapped the critter and transported it.  But, bear spray works on lots of things besides bears, Tom said.

         Hungry - My story about whistlepigs involves a fat one that was hanging around my garage and going inside to break into bags of garbage.

         One day, I noticed the door was open and closed it by remote.

         Next day, there was a big hole chewed out of the wooden garage door. That fat Whistlepig could not get out any other way.

         Triplet fawns - Last spring, I recounted how I watched a mule deer doe give birth to triplets.

         Glad to say that I keep seeing those triplets bouncing around our neighborhood. They are in peril, though. Lander police spotted a mountain lion on Main Street at 3 a.m. last week.

         Bad squirrel – Down in Colorado, folks are mighty upset with a rogue rodent they call the “Wyoming” ground squirrel.

         This guy is pear-shaped, dumpy-looking and breeds like crazy, often having litters of a dozen little Wyoming Squirrels.

         Greenie wildlife folks are being quoted as saying this new guy is running off their traditional chipmunks, much to their dismay.

         Not sure why it is called “Wyoming,” though.

         Maybe we should nickname the Mountain Pine Beetle the “Colorado Beetle,” as it moves north, invading our pristine forests?

         Lucky dog – Lander folks looked on in horror a month ago when our 80-year Community Center burned from an electrical fire late in the afternoon.

The building’s maintenance man barely got out before the log building exploded in flame. A pet dog owned by the groundskeeper of the golf course next door was not so lucky.

         A large crowd gathered to watch the historic building turn into an inferno. The CCC crews had originally built it during the 1930s depression.

         It was sad for the crowd to realize that a dog was burning alive inside the blaze, but there was nothing anyone could do.

         The six-year old yellow lab named Gizmo created quite a stir three hours after the fire started when he was spotted moving inside the office. He ultimately shook things off and strolled out to the crowd.

         Gizmo loves to run, says his owner Joe Stoudt, but it was so hot that afternoon, he left him in the office, not realizing just how hot that area was going to become.

         One firefighter was quoted by reporter Ernie Over as saying, “It was a good end to a bad day.”

Back in 1976, I wrote the column below when our youngest daughter, Amber, trotted off to kindergarten.

In the last few days, Amber’s daughter, little Emery Hollins, started her first day of school in a suburb of Dallas, Texas.

Amber emailed me and reminded me on this column, which she had been reading this week. She thought I should share it with our readers here, and so here it is. The column won a national award and was originally published in the Wyoming State Journal in Lander.

It was included in my first book, The Best Part of America, which was published in 1993.

My wife Nancy and I now have four children and nine grandchildren. Another grandchild, grandson Finis Johnson, here in Lander, also started Kindergarten this past week, too.

Here is the column. I hope you like it:

   It’s been five years of diapers, dollhouses, skinned knees, pony tails, Barbie dolls, tricycles, sparklers, double-runner ice skates, Big Wheels, kittens and hamsters.

Today, I’m sending my youngest child out into the great unknown. She will leave our nest and find out there’s much more to life than just that which she has learned from her folks.

For five years now, she’s believed that anything I told her was true. That all facts emanate from Dad. I’ve been her hero as her life has revolved around her mother, two older sisters, and me.

Now it is somebody else’s turn. Today, we trust an unknown teacher to do what is right for this little girl. This five-year-old, who is so precious to us, yet is just like any of thousands of other little five-year-olds.

I suppose there are scores of other little girls with blond hair and blue eyes right here in Lander.

But, please, I’d like you to take a little extra care with this one.

You see, this is our baby. This is the one I call “pookie” when she’s good and “silly nut” when she’s bad. This is the last of my girls to still always want a piggyback ride.

And, this little girl still can’t ride a bike. And she stubs her toe and trips while walking in sagebrush. She’s afraid of the dark and she doesn’t like being alone.

She’s quite shy, but she is a friendly little girl, though. She’s smart, I think. And she wouldn’t hurt a flea.

I’ll tell you what kind of kid this is.

Twice in the past month, she’s come crying because the cat had killed a chipmunk. She buried both chipmunks, side-by-side. She made little crosses for them too.

This is the child with quite an imagination. For example, she calls the stars dots. And once when we were watering the yard, she assumed we were washing the grass.

She told us that telephone lines were put there so birds would have a place to sit.

She’s just five years old. I’m trusting her care in someone else’s hands and I’m judging that they will be careful with her. She’s a fragile thing in some ways and in other ways, she’s tough as nails.

She’s not happy unless her hair is combed just right and she might change her clothes five times a day. She likes perfume, too.

She also likes to play with toy racecars.

This is the one who always called pine trees “pineapple” trees. And when we visited our home state of Iowa and she saw the huge fields of corn, she said “what big gardens they have here.”

And like thousands of other little girls she’s marching off to her first day of school this week.

I know how those other parents feel.

There is tightness in their chests. Their world seems a little emptier. The days are a little longer.

And when our little girl comes home, waving papers and laughing about the great time she had at school . . . when she tells us about the stars and pine trees . . . and how the farmers raise crops, well . . . she’ll have grown up a little bit, already.

         This is the time of year when hundreds of Wyoming college students attend college at a big discount because of something called “The Hathaway Scholarship.”

         This is a program financed by the state’s mineral wealth. And it is named for Stan Hathaway. Who was this person?

Hathaway probably experienced the most unusual life of any Wyoming political figure in its history.

Wyoming has been fortunate to have many splendid governors. But among contemporary observers, many are now thinking that Hathaway was our greatest. The people of Wyoming mourned his death in 2009 at the age of 81.

         But a look at his life leading up to his election at the incredibly young age of 42 makes for a heck of a story, featuring fate, coincidences, and most of all, gumption.

         Was life difficult in early Wyoming? Listen to young Stan’s story.

         He was born in Nebraska and his mother died when he was two. His father could not raise the family so his cousin Velma Hathaway adopted Stanley. The family homesteaded in Goshen County in 1928 and spent their first year in SE Wyoming living in a tent.

         After outgrowing their tent, Stan’s family moved into a granary. They gathered cow chips to add to the coal to keep the stove going.

         His early education was in one-room schoolhouses, which were soon closed in that depression era. He had to walk a mile to get to his bus stop so he could go to school in Huntley. His family never had indoor plumbing or electricity in his home while he was in high school.

         During his speech at high school graduation at the age of 16 (he was valedictorian), he predicted America would soon enter World War II. That December, Pearl Harbor occurred and Stan and his step dad applied to join the military the next day – both were rejected. Stan was too young and his step dad, Earl, was too old.

Not long after, though, he was accepted for the service, and the state’s future governor found himself in bombers flying over Europe. He flew 63 missions as a radio operator-gunner on B-17s over France and Germany. He survived a fiery crash landing in France and was awarded seven air medals.

Many of his colleagues did not survive the war. Ten young men from Huntley were killed in WWII. After the war, Hathaway attended law school in Nebraska and met his wife Bobby there. How easy it would have been for him to end up in Nebraska or to have not even survived his childhood.

What sort of drive was embedded in this young man that he could fight almost unimaginable obstacles and overcome them in an obscure place in an obscure state where he would achieve unparalleled greatness?

He set up his law practice in Torrington and yet rose to the top in Wyoming. Did the folks in that community appreciate the Hathaways? In his governor race, he got more than 85 percent of their votes.

His achievements as governor have often been repeated – father of the severance tax, most of our environmental laws and after two governor terms, he was Wyoming’s first ever federal cabinet member, as Secretary of the Interior.

Information for this column came from his law partner Brent Kunz, his assistant Diana Gorman and colleague Jack Speight.

Wyoming Public TV airs a half-hour feature on the former governor occasionally. It is worth watching. My favorite part was listening to him describe a time when mineral leaders said if he continued to push for a severance tax, they would make sure he would not get reelected. “I got mad and slammed my fist on the desk,” Hathaway said. He told them he was elected by all the people and they better not ever come into that office and threaten his political future again. A big majority reelected him.

Hathaway said the following during his first inauguration ceremony. These words are every bit as true today as they were over 40 years ago:

 “Our tenure is only temporary in time. We must develop our human and spiritual values as well as out material values. We must all work together to build a better Wyoming. 

“We have a magnificent opportunity to guide our own destiny. To plan for a quality life, not just for this generation, but for generations to come. We can do this because of what we have, and what we are, and what we can be.”