A mid-winter trip from Dallas, Texas, to Lander, Wyoming should be routine. Almost boring.

         Well, not so fast.

         Nancy and I had been enjoying some warm weather in our old motorhome (called FollowMyNose) at an RV Park in Melissa, Texas. The night before my flight to Denver, we were awakened by a ruckus. In typical wifely fashion, my main squeeze demanded: “Go check it out. I hear something.”

         After struggling awake and opening the blinds, the sight in front of me was scary and breathtaking. It was a wall of flame. An RV three spaces away was a huge bonfire. The two spaces between them and us were empty so it seemed like the flames filled up our entire window.

         Luckily, the owners got out okay but my night was ruined.

         It was a sleepy traveler who climbed aboard a Frontier flight the next morning for the Denver trip. Round-trip was just $82. A ridiculous price.

Flight attendants are misnamed. They should be called baggage handlers. Watching these gals heft 40-pound suitcases over their heads into compartments was unseemly.

         My plan was to spend the night at my mom’s in Lafayette north of Denver. But she was suffering from a bad cold and encouraged my drive north in a car stored at my brother Pat’s place.

         The trip on I-80 was quick and the road was dry. Needed a good audio book about the Civil War to keep me awake. Got home at 8:30 p.m., which was also amazing. So far so good

         Nine of our 10 pet ducks greeted me heartily. A big one named Paint, for her colorful feathers, was gone. She had fallen victim to a fox or an owl. 

         It felt good to spend a few days in Lander. The Fox News All-Stars coffee group groaned after hearing about the Texas 70-degree temperatures. Also got to spend some quality time with the Johnson grandsons.

         Snow was predicted Saturday and it came down beautifully. But it piled up to 20 inches deep.          That Sunday involved a drive to Cheyenne for the Governor’s Tourism Conference.

         Bad news. Snow had buried the car. Good Samarians came along and managed to get me to another car where I took off for Cheyenne, by way of Casper.

         High winds and black ice made for a scary trip.

         Four vehicles were off the road in front of me between Douglas and Cheyenne. One threw up a rooster tail of snow as it soared into the median. Farther on, a late model SUV had gone off the road and burst into flame. Firemen seemed to have the situation under control.

         Made it in time to attend a reception at the new Wyoming Welcome Center, which is an amazing place. For decades the visitors’ center was on the west side of the highway, which discouraged tourists from stopping. Glad to finally see it now on the correct side of the road for folks coming into Wyoming.

         We had a booth at the conference promoting our new book. We spent most of the time lining up retail outlets across the state where we can sell the book to tourists during the summer of 2013.

         Also was able to visit many government officials and legislators and catch up on the Cindy Hill fiasco that had occupied a lot of time. What a mess. We owe our legislators and Gov. Matt Mead a huge debt of gratitude for dealing with this runaway train gone amuck.

         House Speaker Tom Lubnau talked about some other crazy things happening at the session, which is great fodder for a future column.

         Saw tourism pioneers like Clarene Law, Gene Bryan, Manuel Lopez, Kari Cooper, Dave Hanks, Mark Anselmi, Claudia Wade and many others too numerous to mention.   Also congrats to Diane Shober for being named Director of the year for the entire USA. Congrats to Chuck Coon for receiving the Big WYO award for his contributions to the state’s second largest industry and largest employer.

         The wind was blowing hard in Cheyenne on departure day (surprise, surprise). Two semi-trailers had already blown over in the 65-mile per hour gusts on I-25 within the first 10 miles of my trip south.

         Had a nice lunch with my 88-year mother who was feeling better and then went to the airport.

         My wife had earlier abandoned me to go to Las Vegas with our three daughters. I was not invited and was told upon seeing her that what happens in Vegas . . . well, you know the rest.

         That 34-minute power blackout during the Super Bowl gave the world a glimpse of the future of how electrical power outages will be occurring in the United States

         During the country’s transition from coal for electricity production, there will not be enough power to run things. And there are going to be a lot of things that need power in the next 10 to 15 years.

         Wonderful advances have been made in development of batteries (discounting the Boeing 787) and also in ways to power appliances with reduced amounts of electricity. But the big breakthroughs are still decades away.

         It is truly incredible how many people in America do not realize where power comes from. They literally think it comes from a socket in the wall.

         They also do not understand how much more electricity that can be generated by coal than any other source, including natural gas. 

And natural gas is still more efficient than solar or wind, but coal is the behemoth when it comes to being able to generate energy. And the bulk of all coal for energy in the country comes from Wyoming.

It is no secret that Wyoming’s economy is largely based on energy commodities. The two biggest ones are coal and natural gas. The state ranks #1 and #2 in production of those two vital national energy sources.

         Lately, both have been involved in price spirals that have put a slight damper on the 21^st century boom that has been enjoyed by Wyomingites.

         And since our boom is literally fueled by fuel, you would think we would continue to enjoy these good times forever. But there are grim statistics on the horizon.

         Domestic coal use has been dropping since the national economic bust of 2008 and, without creating international markets to ship to, the industry will continue see decreases in the amount of coal needed.

         There really is an international coal market. For example, India has more than 150 coal-fired plants either under construction or on the drawing board. Every single plant will be fired with coal. 

         For the past several years, it has been projected that China was bringing on-line a new coal-fired power plant twice a month.

         Both India and China have some sources of coal in their own countries, yet their leaders are actively seeking international sources. This means an entire system of transporting coal including ports and railroads to the mines in Wyoming and Montana needs to be expanded.

         This is good news for our Wyoming economy. It could be anticipated that despite the fact some one-eighth of the coal-fired plants currently in use in the USA may be turned off in favor of cheap natural gas-powered plants, there still is that international market. Peabody Energy recently predicted in ten years the worldwide demand for coal would grow by a billion tons.

Last year, Gov. Matt Mead and State Rep. Tom Lubnau were in China co-hosting a world coal conference. That was an important step.

         The biggest threat to the coal exporting opportunity involves environmentalists in the Northwest. They will have the biggest effect on the future of Wyoming coal being exported.

Some ports are under construction and under protest by folks in Oregon and Washington who hate smelly coal. And they really hate the idea of mile and a half long trains rolling through their countrysides night and day on a never- ending basis.

         It is a nightmare scenario to a place that has weaned itself off coal. The last coal-fired plant in Oregon is scheduled to be shut down in 2020. The city of Bellingham, Washington, for example, has hundreds of homes with lawn signs in their yards proclaiming “NO COAL!”

         They actually have some legitimate complaints in some areas, and people of good will are trying to work out some compromises.

         But it will be a tough sell, especially to the folks who really are trying to think globally. They worry that Wyoming coal will encourage those countries to keep polluting the atmosphere.

         That is an international picture. 

         Back here in the good old USA, we know that the Super Bowl blackout was not caused by a shortage of electricity but rather a faulty piece of equipment. But, power outages typified by that blackout will be occurring more frequently as coal power plants are shuttered and new natural gas plants are slow to replace them.

         The future really is now in the energy business. And Wyoming is going to be in the thick of it, one way or another.

         This statewide column-writing idea started when Wyoming Tribune Eagle Managing Editor Reed Eckhardt asked me to write a weekly commentary about the 2002 statewide political races.

         And here we are, some 520-plus columns later, and we’re still going strong.

         There were two reasons why he asked me to do this job:

1)   Wyoming Republicans had just overwhelmingly voted for Eli Bebout over some guys named Ray Hunkins, Bill Sniffin and Steve Watt in the August, 2002 governor election. My participation in the gubernatorial primary apparently made me a perfect political commentator.

2)   The primary campaign had provided an in-depth education about everything to do with Wyoming, including the economy, the personalities of the people across the state and what made the state tick from one end to the other.

It sounded like fun and I said yes.

         This request from the Cheyenne editor, though, was not my first rodeo when it came to column writing.

         My opinion writing career in Wyoming started on a weekly basis in September of 1970 and has continued pretty much to this day, with a couple of short layoffs. I had probably published 1,500 columns and 2,500 editorials by the time Reed asked me to write a statewide version.

         The great benefit of writing a Wyoming column is constant feedback from folks all over the state. No doubt I love this great place. And that love is reflected back from all corners.

         Most of all, it has been (and continues to be) my distinct honor to be a weekly compiler of statewide interests of note. Looking back on a long and varied career, it is easy to consider writing this statewide column as my single most important journalistic achievement.

         Wyomingites are passionate about this vast and unique place. It sure is fun to write about anything concerning the Cowboy State each week. Based on the feedback I receive, my readers like it, too.

         There are other pioneer column writers who wrote for a long time, too, who deserve mention here.  

         Not sure what the record is for continually writing a Wyoming column, but I may be closing in on the top five. The late Bruce Kennedy of Greybull penned a weekly column for a long time before his death in 1993. The late Margaret Peck of Riverton wrote a column over 50 years. Jim Hicks of Buffalo has been writing columns for over a half century, I think, which is amazing for a man who just turned 60. Or maybe who just acts 60.

         The state’s best-known historian Phil Roberts of Laramie says: “I think probably John Charles Thompson wrote more columns than anyone in the state`s history. He was editor of the Wyoming State Tribune for a half century. I know his work best from a column he titled ‘In Old Wyoming’ in which he reported on conversation s with old-timers. He told stories about long-ago days in Cheyenne and in Wyoming. He had the benefit of actually meeting those original pioneers. He got a lot of it from the horse`s mouth.

“Thompson might be remembered by many as the only reporter allowed to witness the execution of Tom Horn inside the Laramie County Jail on Nov. 20, 1903.”

Fifty years, huh? Just eight years to go until my column writing reaches the half-century mark. The goal of me getting the record sounds a little daunting, especially since Hicks is still writing.

         Lately, my columns have become much less political than when Reed first asked me to start writing the statewide version. I don’t get to Cheyenne as much any more and my focus is more on statewide stories than statewide issues.

         Maybe it is a sign of getting older. Someone recently referred to me as “a dean of Wyoming columnists,” which was a little startling, since once upon a time, I was known as one of the youngest editors and publishers in the country. But, alas, that was a long time ago.

         Many of these thoughts bubbled up recently while attending my 43^rd consecutive Wyoming Press Association convention. Some of the other young Turks who were my contemporaries were there, too. It was easy to notice how they are also pretty gray, pretty bald and pretty much slowing down like me. 

         It is easy to recall seeing a similar bunch of old guys hanging around the conventions back in the 1970s. Now I have become one of them.

         Thanks, Reed, for getting me started on this statewide column and thanks to all of you for reading it.