Most people assumed the best part about moving to Wyoming would be the house.
They were wrong.
When we told people we were moving to Wyoming, almost everyone asked the same question.
“How’s the house coming along?”
Don’t get me wrong. I love our home. After months of planning, countless decisions, more construction conversations than I care to remember, and a cross-country move, walking through our front door still feels surreal.
Leaving Tennessee wasn’t easy. We left family, friends, and everything familiar behind.
But somewhere between leaving Tennessee and settling into Cody, I realized the house wasn’t the thing that changed my life.
The house gave us a place to live. Wyoming gave us a different way to live.
I don’t miss the traffic. at all.
Before moving here, we lived in a suburb outside Nashville. If you’ve ever driven around Nashville, you know a quick errand can turn into an expedition. You couldn’t go anywhere without mentally preparing for traffic.
Need groceries? Traffic.
Doctor’s appointment? Traffic.
Meeting friends for dinner? Better leave thirty minutes early, just in case.
In Nashville, I knew exactly where traffic would back up before I even left the driveway.
Here in Wyoming, “traffic” usually means getting stuck behind someone driving an ATV or a Gator for three miles. (Yes, they’re street legal here.)
I laugh every time someone talks about a “long drive” in Wyoming. Most of the time I’m enjoying the scenery instead of staring at someone’s brake lights. And you don’t even need an interstate to drive 70 miles an hour. The highways are open, the mountains sit in the distance, and the drive becomes part of the trip instead of something to survive.
I didn’t realize how much daily traffic weighed on me until it disappeared.
The stars are worth staying up for
Summer in Wyoming has taken some getting used to. The sun doesn’t set until well after 9:00 at night, and it’s light again shortly after 5:00 in the morning. If you’re hoping to admire the stars before bed, good luck. Most nights I’m already asleep. The only time I really see them is when I wake up in the middle of the night.
But when I do: wow.
Without city lights or neighborhood glow, the sky feels enormous. It’s pitch black. The stars aren’t competing with anything. They just shine.
Pictures don’t do it justice. It reminds me how much I was missing when I lived somewhere that was never truly dark.
Apparently, this is what no waiting feels like
One of my favorite surprises about living here: there aren’t lines everywhere. No waiting forever for a table. No spending half your day at the DMV. No wondering whether you’ll find a parking space.
Honestly, the biggest inconvenience we’ve had this summer is standing in line at Walmart behind Yellowstone tourists.
If that’s my biggest complaint, we’re doing fine.
Wildlife is just part of Tuesday
One of my favorite things is driving through town and spotting deer grazing in someone’s front yard. The first time I saw them standing perfectly still, I whispered to Mark, “That’s an interesting landscaping choice.”
Then one moved.
Turns out they were very much alive.
I’ve also seen antelope grazing alongside the road, and every time the same song pops into my head: “Where the deer and the antelope play.” I never paid attention to those lyrics before. Now they’re basically my commute.
It’s funny how quickly something extraordinary starts feeling normal. Though I hope it never completely does.
Sometimes I just sit and look outside
Every morning I make tea, sit at the table, and stare out the window longer than I probably should. Sometimes I’m not even thinking about anything. I’m just looking.
I never realized how rarely I let myself be still. That never happened before.
When Mark and I first visited Wyoming, we never imagined we’d actually end up living here. Now it’s home. We often look at each other and say the same thing: “We’re so blessed.” It feels like we found our own little Shangri-La.
Life feels quieter
It’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived both versions. Life doesn’t just look different here. It feels different.
For years I thought I needed a vacation. Turns out I needed a different lifestyle.
I’m not sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a Sunday afternoon wondering where everyone is going. I’m not lying awake until nearly midnight on the Fourth of July listening to bottle rockets because the neighbors decided sleep is optional. I’m not watching my surroundings when I walk through town, waiting for someone to ask me for money. I haven’t seen a single panhandler since moving to Cody.
There isn’t a constant hum in the background anymore. No interstate. No sirens. No endless stream of cars. Sometimes all I hear is the wind.
The pace is slower. People seem happier. The stress is lower. Somewhere along the way, I noticed I was breathing a little easier.
It was never really about the house
We came to Wyoming because we fell in love with the scenery. We stayed because we fell in love with the life.
The mountains are beautiful. The house is everything we’d hoped for. I love every room. But if you took away the granite countertops, the vaulted ceilings, and every carefully chosen light fixture, I’d still choose this life.
Because what I was really searching for wasn’t a prettier house. It was peace. And somehow, tucked between the mountains, the open highways, the wildlife, and the endless skies, we found it.
That’s the greatest gift Wyoming has given me.
I don’t know if we’ll live here forever. But I know this: sometimes the biggest change in your life isn’t where you live. It’s how living there changes you.
