Western Skies

Friday's music was of an epic love which may or may not end happily. Sunday's was about an epic task, one that takes all a person has but that they will finish come hell or high water.

Today's is a song more about real life inspired by the land and people where I live and love. Take me out of the west (although strictly speaking it's probably from the Plains to the Cascades, I define it as reaching to the Pacific Ocean) and I'd wither. I know my roots, where I was born and where my ashes should be spread and it can be anywhere under--

Western Skies

If you write a blog, you know how they have a way of taking over, just as writing fiction will do. What was planned is not always what happens. Such is the case here when I thought of this song, then of the man who sang it, the land where he lived, and suddenly the blog expanded.

Not everyone is a fan of western music, but I am among those who are. Chris LeDoux, who died way too early in March 2005 of a rare form of liver cancer, was the real deal in terms of his character, singing and cowboy lifestyle . He had ridden rodeo in his younger years. He and the love of his life raised their family on a ranch in the same country where Butch Cassidy had one of his hideouts-- Kaycee, Wyoming.

In 1998, before I had heard of LeDoux but was very interested in seeing more of the country through which Butch Cassidy rode, I made a brief trip through the Powder River country getting as close as I could to the Hole in the Wall. In the town of Kaycee was this wonderful little museum full of western information and memorabilia. This area, Johnson County, was also a region of struggles between big cattlemen and homesteaders.

Because of the reminder of Kaycee, I dug into my drawer of photos and scanned a few from that trip (back in the days before digital made this all so much easier) and will share them tomorrow as there are few parts of the west as beautiful as Kaycee and none prettier in my opinion.