Okay, I first happened on Thermopolis, Wyoming and it was just a little town, so I thought, “Gosh, I may have to look hard to entertain myself here.” Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Yellowstone and gave the name Thermopolis a second thought. In my mind, I had been seeing the Spartans at Thermopylae – then thought thermo and Yellowstone. Hot spa place, I wondered.
Well, they have a slick webside – “Home of the World’s Largest Mineral Spring.” They have a Dinosaur Center there, as well; so I am going to look for another small town in Wyoming. I guess I’m not in the mood for the tourist attractions.
Let’s try Albin – I found it right up against the eastern border in the southern part of the state. And here’s a fact:
Distance to major cities:
Cheyenne : 41 miles
Casper : 194 miles
Denver , CO : 141
(They do have a missile base, though, and it’s really close.)
I’ve been doing a little aerial exploration and I think there is one paved road going through town – is it Main or Broadway? I should have known – it’s Cheyenne. Then I see a length of road one block long coming off it to the south. Not much here, I think . . . but, ACK, I’m in it up to my eyeballs, now. Well, that’s okay; there are interesting stories everywhere and I like looking for them.
They don’t have cell phone service in Albin (and you can read the article in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle Online ) because they don’t have a tower. You see, Albin is right along the Union Pacific train tracks – if they were near an interstate, they would have a much better chance of getting a signal. My mother lives in a little village but part of my grandparents’ farm was sold to the state when the Toll Road came through. That baby comes out of Chicago and heads all the way east. She has great service.
I keep getting off the subject here and maybe in doing so I can of experience Albin. It’s a group of houses with the high plains all around them. You do have to turn inward there and ponder things – I suppose a person there talks to the other people (120 total) there and then he/she tells it to the countryside and listens to see if it talks back.
My granddaughter has been watching Alvin and the Chipmunks and I’m starting to think of the town as Alvin. Oh, but, gosh . . . I would never have expected this:
University of Wyoming electrical engineering student Julie Sandberg of Albin received the Scholar of the Year award from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC).
Sandberg was notified for the honor at the recent annual ACEC meeting in Washington, D.C. The award includes a $10,000 scholarship for the 2007-2008 academic year and a trip later this semester to the association’s 2007 fall conference in Maui, Hawaii, for the official presentation.
Sandberg’s family resides in Albin, a small farming community 42 miles northeast of Cheyenne. She says her greatest support comes from her family, including parents Terry and Joanne Sandberg, sister Lori, also a UW College of Engineering and Applied Science student, and grandmother Bertha Sandberg.
“All the people in Albin are more like family than friends,” Sandberg, says.
(You can read the entire article HERE.)
Hunters Trace Kennel is in Albin; they breed award winning Golden Retrievers. Uh . . . they don’t list a cell phone number that I can tell, but they say the best way to reach them is email – that would be Internet satellite, right? Probably. But I think they have cable TV so I’m not really certain.
And just when you start to joke around, you click on a topic and find tragedy:
ALBIN CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, ALBIN: Candace Yuill (11) and her brother, Brett Yuill (8), were killed when an oncoming snowplow veered into the path of their school bus on an icy country road. The impact peeled off the right side of the bus, flattened the first four rows of seats on the right side ejecting both victims from the bus.
A future NASA scientist, top dogs . . . and tragedy. Life is the same everywhere.