If you’re looking at the title of this post and wondering if my spell checker is on the fritz, it’s not. Vedauwoo is a place in Wyoming between Laramie and Cheyenne. It’s part of the Medicine Bow National Forest, and is made up of Sherman Granite that is 1.4 billion years old.
Vedauwoo (the term is an anglicized version of an Arapahoe word meaning “earth born spirit” is one of my heart places. It’s where I spent my birthday this year, and many past birthdays as well.
Going to Vedauwoo for a summer picnic has been a tradition in my life since I was a little girl. Those days my parents would handle the picnic fare. My father would cook hamburgers over a fire in a big cast iron frying pan. He’d also make hash brown potatoes that were the best in the world, in a cast iron Dutch oven.
I still yearn for the taste of both, cooked by him.
Rounding out the picnic would be watermelon, doughnuts, and maybe baked beans. I can’t remember ever having a vegetable of any kind, but surely there was something. My mother was one of the early “eat you vegetables” kind of parents.
It was this annual childhood routine that became imprinted within me such that now if I don’t make it to Vedauwoo sometime in the summer or fall, I can feel it within my body. I know it sounds kind of over the top, but it’s true. If I don’t get to Wyoming I miss it as much as I would miss water or food. It’s part of who I am.
The novelist Carson McCuller says, “To know who you are, you have to have a place to come from.”
I come from Wyoming and am proud of it. Wyoming is in my blood, but more than that it’s in my psyche. I’ve said in my introduction for this blog that I am a western girl, through and through. There is something about the wide-open spaces of the west that fills me with peace. My husband teases me about blissing out as soon as we start the drive west from Cheyenne.
He’s right. All that rolling prairie does calm me. I stare out the window of the car and lose myself in the swaying grasses, blue sky and a horizon that stretches out far beyond what the eye can see.
Twenty or so miles out of Cheyenne, the terrain begins to change. Small boulders dot the landscape, growing larger the closer you get to Vedauwoo. The rocks look soft and round and remind em of my grandmother’s dinner rolls, rising on the kitchen counter.
And all these years later, my heart quickens and my soul issues a sigh of contentment as we pull into the picnic area.
It was a perfect day – a perfect birthday.
Do you have a heart place? I’d love to hear about it.
Tomorrow a story about the wildlife of Vedauwoo.
And thank you to all of you who sent birthday greetings my way. I appreciate it so very much.
And I appreciate you!
12 comments
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July 26, 2010 at 7:21 am
sarah fishburn
Of course…New Mexico…
July 28, 2010 at 6:11 am
Jean McBride
Of course. I feel the same way about New Mexico even though I didn’t grow up there. You have special “dibs.”
July 26, 2010 at 9:30 am
Laurel
I feel the same way about Iowa and Minnesota. I’ve lived in Colorado longer than I lived in either of those states, but the midwest will always be home and I feel the peace you mentioned when I’m in the North Woods or near an Iowa cornfield. It’s imprinting…
July 27, 2010 at 7:00 am
jeanmcbride
Those psychic links to familiar places are strong and wonderful aren’t they?
July 26, 2010 at 10:10 am
Jane Sullivan
Me too! I’m proud to be from Wyoming, and loved our day up there. I say, next time let’s try to re-produce the cook out! I’ll even bring the food!! I love you. Happy Birthday again.
Janey
July 26, 2010 at 10:39 am
Tammy
I have to tell you, it is odd for me. I grew up in Colorado (I’m a native). But, I never really felt like I was “home” until we moved to the coast. It’s the ocean for me, and particularly the Oregon coast. This is it!
July 27, 2010 at 6:59 am
jeanmcbride
Isn’t it wonderful to find where you belong? I don’t think it is so much about where one grew up but rather where one’s psyche feels at home.
July 26, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Anne
Happy you enjoyed your birthday doing what you love to do. Having moved as much as we did I am fortuante to have many “heart places” and all for different reasons. An extra special “heart place” for me is the ocean. Occasionally I revisit —mentallly- the ocean “heart place.” Lots of good memories.
July 26, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Anne
P.S. Vedawoo more impressive than the sculptures of Mt. Rushmore.
Have you ever climbed the area?
Anne
July 27, 2010 at 7:01 am
jeanmcbride
When I was younger, I climbed all over Vedauwoo. Much younger! These days I’m content to hike and picnic.
July 28, 2010 at 5:49 am
Carolann
One of my heart places is Lake Marie. In Wyoming, Medicine Bow area above Centennial. Can’t even explain why, but it touched me years ago when snowmobiling, and I keep going back. Summer wildflowers are spectacular. Powerful place.
July 28, 2010 at 6:08 am
Jean McBride
Oh Carolann,
I knew we were kindred spirits. Snowy Range is another of my heart places. And Lake Marie is a spectacular place. There is so much energy there – I always feel both humbled and renewed when I sit on the banks or hike around.
Thanks for your comment.