WYOMING WINTERS AND THE MYTH OF THE FROZEN WEST

Winter in Wyoming is cold—especially in a van conversion as primitive as mine. But with a lack of insulation comes a greater immediacy of the snowbound lifestyle I’m happy to be living—when you’re holed up in any unheated structure in the winter, it’s impossible to forget where you are, and what’s outside. Stuck in a parking lot during a snowstorm, I recall another chill in the Wyoming wilderness, and I am reminded why I sometimes don’t mind being frozen in place.

The plow makes its third lap across the back of the parking lot. Again, the muted thwump of displaced snow hitting my rear bumper, and a spray of frost as the diesel-fueled shovel pushes past my van, digging for the buried asphalt.

It dumped last night. The plows woke up early