Week 51: Wyoming

"The sky, its line and this run

 And I cry out in Wyoming;
 My boots, my pride and my gun
 And I cry out in Wyoming..."
 - 'Wyoming',
 Brand New Sin

Wow - Wyoming. Alpahabetically the last of the states in the Union. I still have the somewhat nebulous topic of 'Road Movies' to finish off the last week of 2012 but frankly I'm amazed I've made it this far. To Wyoming.

Wyoming is, I'd imagine, much like Montana - wide open skies, endless expanses of prairie, weather-beaten pick-ups driven by weather-beaten cowboys looking like the Marlboro Man. I imagine everyone has a gun (or five) and are hardy, independent sorts who don't look for much intrusion from the state in their lives. I know Dick Cheney hails from here, so I imagine it is one of the Reddest of the Red States.

Though Wyoming is libertarian in all senses of the world. It is known as the 'Equality State' and gave women the vote - and let them stand for office - before any other state in the U.S. Maybe this was a result of the small population (Wyoming is the least populous of all 50 states and has the second lowest population density after Alaska). But it makes Montana seem crowded.

The one real claim to fam of Wyoming - and the reason most people visit I would imagine - is that it houses the bulk of Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is, of course, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So I may, with luck, get to visit Wyoming myself one day. I may even try to get out to the eastern side of the state, home to Devil's Tower, so memorably modelled in mashed potato by Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Leaving Close Encounters to one side, my three films seem to be stuck in a hardy outdoorsman sort of vein I'm afraid. They are:

• Shane (1953)
• Unforgiven (1992)
• Brokeback Mountain (2005)