Wyoming as seen by Gretel Ehrlich

Gretel Ehrlich really makes you want to go out to Wyoming. The way she describes the settings is wonderful. The details she provides for us as readers makes you want to read her over and over. From the Journals chronicles her existance in the rugged western territory. She was out there to help research her book, and to get a better feel of the land. I especially liked when she went to Key West, Florida to see Ernest Hemmingway's house. She thought that he lived a very privliged lifestyle. He in fact did not. He lived quite the opposite. In both The Solace of Open Spaces & Pinkey, I was more involved with the reading because of the narrative. In the journals, everyting is told and not shown. But in eack short story, I read in more detail about each place. One example is the description she gives about cowboys and how they strive to stay on the land. Even the land is given more desciption. In the Journal, I felt that not much was told about each place. But then again, this was a journal and not a novel.
Also, I wanted to get more in the proper mindset of where this place is. So before I read the readings, I read the short story Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx. What Proulx does in Brokeback is make the setting of Wyoming a character, which reflects the main characters feelings. Like when "Enis Del Mar" and "Jack Twist" ended the job for the summer, the weather was overcast reflecting how sad Enis was. So after reading the story I knew what I was getting into.