So it was an interesting start to the trip, which took place Nov. 7 - Nov. 10. I flew in using American Airlines to Cheyenne via Dallas-Fort Worth. Sadly, #thecurseofthetravelingKEC struck again, this time early. While I made it to Cheyenne personally without a problem, my checked bag did not. Now, they did find the bag quickly at Dallas-Fort Worth. However, since Wyoming is a small airport (one terminal, only one way into the airport area in general) & American only flies once a day on this route, I had to wait until Friday 1pm local time for the next day's plane to bring my bag. American was helpful as best they could throughout, giving me a bag of toiletries to use for the night while waiting for my checked bag to come in. It should be noted, however, that the spare underwear, socks, & shirt in my carry-on saved me from further problems.
As an aside, the trend of everyone using roller bags as carry-ons really slow down getting on the plane. It is of course, a byproduct of most airlines charging for checked bags & most people trying not to deal with the problems of checked bags in general (lost bag problem above, baggage mishandling). Hopefully, I can resume flying Southwest at some point, even if it is only return flights, & not have to pay to check a bag.
I did take a photo while waiting for the American Airline Ticket Agent to finish the baggage handling from the flight (yes, ticket agent apparently does do that at CYS) of one of the many boots setup all over Cheyenne. Cheyenne has an interesting program to set up development all over the City, & their project theme is, "If this boot could talk, what story would it tell?"
This hunt was similar to the Hunt for the Garfield Statues & the Hunt for the (I)ndy Statues in 2016. So there are 25 known boot sculptures on the map. One of them, #8, was in storage due to the area being under construction. However, I did find a bonus boot that was not on the guidemap. The guidemap claims that the boots do change locations from time to time, but an 8 foot tall, 8.5 foot long, & 2.5 foot wide boot is much heavier & harder to move than than the (I)ndy Statues.
Guide map & other information about the boot hunt below, including the $5,000 cost for a boot.
https://www.cheyenne.org/listing/cheyenne-big-boots/263/
They also provide a telephone number you can call to hear the artist tell stories about 18 of the boots they made. The lettered boots have not been added to the audio tour yet & neither has the bonus boot that I found.
Boot No. 11 - Blue Skies over Cheyenne - CYS Airport - by John Guthrie
Might as well start the hunt while waiting for the whereabouts of my checked bag.
Boot No. 18 - Milestones - Chamber 100th Anniversary aka We've Worked Hard to Get Here - in front of Cheyenne Depot Museum - by Jill Pope
Jill Pope had some funny stories about this & at least one of the other boots she made, including her dog running over the boot & spreading paint all over her living room floor! I think she is now one of the two contacts involved if a business wants to commision a boot.
Boot No. 14 - Where the Deer & the Antelope Play - Cheyenne Depot Plaza - by Liz Gnagy
These two would fit in with my college friends playing spades & pitch!
Boot No. 03 - Licensed to Boot - Wyoming State Museum - Carey Junior High Art Club
I have to admit, when I saw the title, my first thought was, "Is this a parody of a James Bond movie?" However, this is obviously based on License Plates.
Add. Boot G - Happy Birthday Cheyenne! - near the Cheyenne Municipal Court - Ross Lampshire
I found a knight parking post near here too.
Bonus Boot - Title Unknown - Wyoming Trust & Bank - near Boot No. 02 - artist unknown
This was the bonus boot I found while having difficulties finding one of the boors on the map.
Add. Boot F - Walmart Boot - Walmart Distribution Center - Amber Kubot
Location Note: Google Maps takes you down the truck entrance driveway. Don't go there. Use the associate/visitor driveway instead.
Boot No. 04 - Atmospheric Research aka NCAR Boot - National Center for Atmospheric Research Supercomputing Center - Ross Lampshire
Images based om computer generated images of atmospheric events like Hurricane Katrina. More on this location in a bit.
Boot No. 02 - Springtime in Cheyenne - Random Businesses near the Bonus Boot - Rose Burrows
I had a very hard time finding this boot as it blended in and was hidden.
Boot No. 10 - Outlaws of Wyoming - Holliday Park - Cheyenne Artist Guild
22 members painted this. (!)
Boot No. 07 - LCCC Eagle Eye of the Future - Laramie County Community College, South Side of Campus - Ross Lampshire
Same location as the Wyoming Open Chess Tournament, school mascot.
It should be noted that Boot No. 08, LCCC 40 Years of Excellence, was in storage as the area on the north side of Campus was under construction.
There were a few other interesting pieces of artwork that I remember seeing during the Hunt for the Boots.
Artwork on a Traffic Signal Controller - George Cox Parking Facility
Knight post, Cheyenne Municipal Court (Near Add. G)
So, I did visit the National Center for Atmospheric Research Supercomputing Center during the Hunt for the Boots. It was a fascinating place that explained how they used supercomputers to do calculations of atmospheric events from the past & how they try to model atmospheric events of the future. While the museum part itself was not very large, they still had numerous stations explaining the atmosphere, the sciences behind the research, the calculation powers required, the methods of cooling the supercomputers to prevent overheating, & the supercomputers themselves. They are in the process of taking the old supercomputer out, with the current one from 2017 fully in, & a newer supercomputer is scheduled for 2021 +/-. I was unlucky that particular Friday as the main tour guides were traveling to do a presentation somewhere else and there might not have been a tour on that particular day, but the security guard told me that if you call ahead, sometimes they can do a tour on fridays at noon to bring you into the same room as the supercomputers. And yes, there were actual people handling the process of the removal of the supercomputer when I was there.
My original plan was to do the CrossFit Open 20.5 WOD at CrossFit Cheyenne at the 12pm local time frame. However, since my athletic gear was in the checked bag, & I had to wait until 1 pm to retrieve said checked bag, this delayed my try at the WOD to the 4pm local time spot. Coach King was very nice to me, reminding me that working out at elevation (Cheyenne is approximately 6000 feet above sea level), may cause additional difficulties.
So I did 20.5 Scaled
Partitioned anyway you want.
40 muscle-ups pullups
80-cal. row
120 wall-ball shots
Ladies 14-lb. ball to 9 ft. 10#
Gentlemen 20-lb. ball to 10 ft. 14#
Time cap: 20 minutes
Tiebreak time awarded when you finish both the 80 calories & the 120 wallballs.
In this workout, there are many ways to attack this. I chose this method: (15 Wallballs, 10 Calories, 15 WB, 10 Calories, 10 Pullups) x 4 Rounds
This gives your legs a rest while still doing work. If you struggle with 10 pullups, then stop and continue with next set of WB calories to try to reach your tiebreak time.
When doing this, A) I forgot about the pullups and kept struggling rather than advancing to the next wallballs, & B) the elevation took out my legs as the rowing was more difficult than it should have been. I finished with 195 reps.
[I redid this when I got home & got 232 scaled reps with a tiebreak time of 16:20. When I dropped off the pullup bar in the early sets, I went straight to the next set of Wallballs to eventually earn the tiebreak & then chip away at pullups. I ended up doing 24 of the 32 pullups within that 3:40 remaining.]
The downside of working out so late in the day was that my first round started at 7pm, so I had very little time to shower & down some food before play started. I remember my heart rate increasing when I had a hard time finding the tournament room at Laramie County Community College, but that's because there was an unintentional error & the wrong room was posted! Luckily I called the TD Brian & he helped me out to get to the room.
I didn't play well at all in the tournament (Result Link: https://www.wyomingchess.com/2019WyoOpen.html), struggling to win the two games that I won in Rounds 3 & 4. The TD admitted to wanting to publish my Round 1 loss when I said "Ouch." when I got checkmated by the top seed & eventual tournament winner, so I'll let him publish that.
This trip's game is from Round 3. I just tried to use his dark squares against him & there wasn't much of an answer.
I didn't think that I won a prize after coughing up the first two rounds, but the TD emailed me on Monday after I returned saying he needed my address. So I gave him that & received a small prize check.
And this updates the win-loss state map. Once I'm done with the original 50 states, I will make revisiting the states in red a top priority, saving New York & Pennsylvania for the last two (both are negative double digit differentials).
There's nothing more to report from Wyoming, so unless I take a quick trip somewhere else, I'll see you in Parsippany, NJ in 2020 for the 50th World Amateur Team/US Amateur Team East Tournament!
Note: 2020 may have less states than normal due to some obligations that may take up a big chunk of time. I will still try to go to at least 2 states, but not likely to hit my normal 4 states that I visited in the last several years.
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