My name is Charlotte, but everybody calls me Charlie for short. I live in Wyoming, a state in the west of the USA. It’s easy to find Wyoming on the map; its borders are all straight lines! Even though it’s among the ten largest states in the US, it is the least populous. Fewer than 600,000 people live here. With so few inhabitants, Wyoming doesn’t have any big cities. In fact, its tallest building is a twelve-story student dormitory on the University of Wyoming’s campus!
The biggest city, and the capital, is Cheyenne. If you ever decide to visit it, make sure to come in July and take a trip through time! Go back to the days of the Old West, when cowboys, outlaws and various explorers roamed the areas of what is now the western part of the United States. You can take part in Frontier Days, the world’s largest rodeo, which recreates the spirit of the Wild West, with events such as bronco and bull riding or calf roping. Another way to go is by visiting Native American villages, or historic ranches. Or you can walk on one of the historic national trails, just as lots of traders, gold seekers, ranchers and others did two centuries ago in search of a better life! The cowboys that you’ll see in these places have always been a symbol of Wyoming. In fact, a cowboy on a bucking horse is Wyoming’s official trademark, and the reason why some people call it the Cowboy State. However, its official nickname is ‘the Equality State’. Did you know that in 1869 Wyoming was the first state or territory within the USA to grant women the right to vote?
Other cities and towns are rather small, with wide-open spaces separating them. But don’t let this fool you into thinking Wyoming is a boring state. What it lacks in population and the number of cities and buildings, it more than makes up for with its majestic nature and wildlife. In 1872, Yellowstone National Park became the first national park, not just in the US, but in the world! This enormous park contains about half of the world’s geysers! Other than being a breathtaking sight, they reveal its underground secret. Do you know what it is? A supervolcano that sleeps below Yellowstone’s peaceful landscape. And what a beautiful landscape it is! Yellowstone is home to lots of natural wonders. Did you know that the waterfalls in the park are bigger than the ones at Niagara Falls? Or that it even has its own Grand Canyon? Just make sure you don’t confuse it with the world-famous Grand Canyon in Arizona, carved by the Colorado River! This national park is rich in wildlife, too. You can see bison, our state mammals, roaming the Great Plains, and gray wolves, bighorn sheep and grizzly bears can be spotted in vast forests and meadows.
Wyoming also has the first national monument in the US, Devils Tower. This towering rock is a sacred place for many Native American tribes. Most of their stories about how the rock came to be include a bear, who clawed it and gave it its recognizable shape. Steven Spielberg, a movie director, made it even more famous in his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of my favorite SF movies. Fossil Butte national monument is another one of my favorites. You can see some of the world’s best-preserved fossils there! They tell the story of ancient wildlife living in this area, as well as the story of Earth’s extraordinary history. You see, there’s so much to learn about nature if you come to Wyoming. That’s why I’m happy to live here. My family lives in Jackson, a small town in northwestern Wyoming. Even though it’s small, it’s a popular tourist destination, because it’s close to the southern entrance of Grand Teton National Park. My dad is a park ranger there, and my mom is a geologist. I guess that’s why I’m a nature lover myself! I’d like to make natural sciences my career some day. I’m still not sure what exactly, so I plan to volunteer and try different things out through high school, to find out what’s best for me.