United States
Idaho • Wyoming
September 2020 • Idaho and Wyoming have a lot in common: 200-mile border, Tetons, defiant MAGA sneer. Spent the same amount of time (2 days) in both states and covered the same amount of ground (400 miles), and found them to be remarkably unalike. It might’ve been the weather (Idaho had more sun), but I wondered if there's a better explanation for why I’d gladly return to one and not to the other, so I googled it. Found a 2017 WaPo article that says Idaho is booming and Wyoming is bleeding because the former has a diversified economy and the latter is dependent on a single, much-maligned commodity (coal). Still seems like Wyoming did something really bad in the past and is paying a karmic price today, so my next searches were "matthew shepard" then "dick cheney."
