DesMoins Iowa.
We stopped into a small restaurant just a few steps away from the airport. With time to kill we started talking about the next trip to Houston and what not.

There was an older woman eating alone next to us and I said hello, starting up a polite conversation. She had flown in from Philadelphia and would not be staying long. She was here to see about some houses.

We told her we weren't from the Navy and that we were pilots. She didn't think much of it till we started talking about why she was here.

She had purchased several houses for around $40K and was fixing them up to sell. She was originally from Stewart NY, had lived her whole life in Philadelphia and was finally in Wyoming for the past 35years.

She was paying a man $300 to drive from Cody Wyoming to Iowa to help fix some houses.

"He's a drunk and he won't stop leaving the bear cans on the floor..." she started.

"But he sure can fix anything, and he's cheap."

I asked her if he was just a nice guy from back west and she began.

"You know if you'd walk into the bar in Cody with those city shoes (my flying shoes) they'd know you weren't from around there." I chuckled quietly as she continued.

"Men there look like men, and you know something? They can dance! You wouldn't think that someone that rides fence or works a farm, or whatever they do, could dance, but I tell you what!" She leaned back into her chair sipping her diet coke as she looked me in the eye, eager to keep talking about the Wild West.

"The country seems to atrract men like the cities tend to attract women, so when you go to the bars there just aren't too many women. The guys will come to your table and ask your girl to dance. It's just what they do out there, no one gets mad or anything, it's just different."

I could tell by her flare that she was keen on the manners and slow life of the western mentality. I didn't tell her I came from out west and still wore my ropers around tound.

"One of these days I'm going to make it to Cheyenne..." I started

"Oh honey, you need to. And pay the extra couple bucks for the good seats. You actually get to sit so close to the action," her body started to move up and around like a bull ready to buck.

"you can smell the bull, and I tell you, if you if you had one of those chords around your, you know, you'd be kicking too..."

We all laughed and joked about the 8 seconds that made the men we never read or hear about. It was about pride in the moment, the sound of the crowd, and the adrenaline of knowing that when the gate opens, no matter what condition you are in, willing or not, you are face to face wih death, several seconds no one will ever share with you.

The cowboys drink, spit, keep an odd job here or there, but they work as Rodeo Riders, going from town to town. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't. It doesn't pay well, but the life's worth living.

"You should see them in their ironed pants, cowboy hats and figures. They don't look like you, she glanced at us. They're square men and you don't see many of them cityside."

We talked of flying and going to the majestic big town of Wyoming.

"When you guys fly in, you'll get there on a 10 person plane. And there might be 10 people on the plane. But when you get through the terminal you don't go to the baggage carousel. Everyone stops for a beer or a cup of coffee."

She continued describing the slow way of life, slowly recollecting to our interest, but more to keep her close to her home amidst this city restraunt we all were gathered. I never got her name or what she did, perhaps she was a famous novelist, perhaps she was a runaway convict that could weave a tale. When it was time we paid our bill said our goodbyes and drove away thinking about Cheyenne. Perhaps I should practice my two stepping, perhaps I should have told her I'd been through there on a ride out west, stopping only to enjoy the scenery over a cigarrette.

Nevertheless, tonight we sleep in Houston, perhaps tomorrow west of the Rockies. My boots have been around the world, seen things I never could have imagined existed, and today have been corrupted into trying the smell of tobacco, dust and bull sweat for an 8 seconds that perhaps can not be paralleled.

The unknown lies in front of us, perhaps in our minds as well, perhaps right in front of us....