Why We Left Wyoming
I guess before I get into why we left Wyoming, I should share how we got there.
I visited Wyoming for the first time in 2018. I was newly out of a very restrictive, codependent relationship & enjoying newfound freedom of single life. Over the course of the six year relationship, I’d lost touch with a lot of friends.
One of them being, my best friend from kindergarten, Jenn.
In May, I’d briefly reconnected with Jenn at a field hockey tournament in Southern California. While updating each other on the current events of our lives, she’d shared with me that she was living in Jackson, Wyoming & extended an open invitation for me to come visit.
Come July, I was cruising solo, windows down, for 14 hours in my ‘06 Mazda 3 with no air conditioning through the Nevada dessert. Jenn and I met up at a school bus turned taqueria & spent four days exploring Wyoming together.
We paddle boarded on Phelps Lake, hiked to Delta Lake, rafted down the Snake River, and took the gondola to the top of a mountain for fancy drinks. I’d never experienced an area so rich with outdoor opportunities or met so many cool people all in one place. One friend I met was literally nicknamed, “Chill Brah.”
When I returned home to California from Wyoming, I was a couple weeks out from closing on the sale a brand new house in the suburbs. I was going to be a solo female homeowner! I should have been stoked. But I already had my sights set on a new goal. Once I experienced the mountain lifestyle of Jackson, I knew my days in the ‘burbs were numbered. I started making an escape plan almost immediately after moving in to my new home.
Then, 2020 happened. & I found it even more urgent to find a way out of the suburbs. I deeply craved the sense of peace, freedom, and adventure I’d found exploring the mountains of Wyoming. My boyfriend, Jered, and I looked at houses in the Sierra Foothills in California. Luckily, the cost of fire insurance and very real threat of losing our home to wildfire shied us away from that option.
As the pandemic continued, I realized that trading my house in the ‘burbs for a cabin in the woods wouldn’t give me the kind of freedom I was really craving. I wanted to escape the monotony of the daily grind, and being trapped in another mortgage would not help me break free.
The demands of teaching online through the pandemic urged me to seek a life with fewer responsibilities, more access to outdoors, and time to explore. So in October 2020 I decided to leave my job as teacher, sell the house, buy a camper, and travel the Western US working seasonally. I figured making Wyoming our first stop in the camper would be a beautiful full circle moment (& I love a full circle moment… Bless!).
There were times in Wyoming that felt like a dream being actualized. Our first weekend in Wyoming, we were camped out on a riverbank in the rain & decided to open a Goose Island stout we’d been saving since Winter 2020. Standing there in our tiny camper “kitchen,” I remembered how hard that winter was, how bogged down I felt by responsibilities, fear, & grief over the state of my life & the world. Enjoying that stout, I felt this huge release realizing we’d made it through the darkest times. Throughout the pandemic, we’d had this great goal of finding freedom through full-time camper living - & we’d finally achieved it.
But Jackson had been through a lot of growth and change in the four years since I’d been there. We’d managed to find affordable housing by bringing our housing with us, however, most people who work in Jackson cannot afford to live there. Rush hour traffic, resort town premiums, & inflation made Jackson feel like we’d just moved the rat race to a new racetrack. An incredibly beautiful, awe-inspiring racetrack, but a track all the same. We found that the people who lived there were intent on staying in their lane, not interested in making friends outside their existing network. Jered and I started to feel very isolated as we struggled to find our place in the community as temporary California transplants.
We worked as gardeners in Wilson, Wyoming (just outside Jackson), retreating to BLM land in the evenings & using the weekends to escape crowds and explore the surrounding mountains & National Parks. Then, at the end of July we requested a week off to travel to Oregon for a friend’s wedding. A few days before the wedding, we packed up the truck and made the two-day journey to Oregon. On my way to one of the pre-wedding festivities in Oregon, I got a voicemail from our boss saying we’d been replaced. My heart dropped - momentary fear - followed by an overwhelming sense of relief. This was an opportunity. I knew immediately what to do next.
Rooted in Wyoming by only our PO Box keys, we decided to stay in Oregon after the wedding.
Now I have more time and energy to devote into my own business pursuits. I’ve been wanting to start this blog for a long time (over a year!) & to find a way to make my passion for photography into an income. Staying in Oregon also gave us the community both Jered and I were deeply longing for. Our friends who got married, Cat & Zach, happen to have a bunch of really awesome people in their circles we are enjoying getting to know.
I don’t know why we lost our jobs as gardeners. I did not call my boss back to hear his reasoning for replacing us without warning. But I know that we’re in the right place. Doing exactly what we’re supposed to.
The pandemic taught me how to have faith. For me, that means that no matter the discomfort of present challenges - there is a purpose for it in my life. Everything is as it should be. Nothing needs to change. This is the path & we will find our way because I trust that we have everything we need within us.
With love,
Marissa