We arrived in Laramie late at night and when we got to the hotel, the lady at the front desk saw our BYU shirts and said “Sorry, we ain’t got no room tonight.” I told her we had a reservation, but she just repeated the line and asked if we wanted to call the sheriff.

After a few minutes, in walks 3 guys wearing cowboy hats, chaps, and spurs. As soon as they walked in, the music in the hotel lobby stopped and everything went quiet. The biggest of the 3 men spoke up and said, “Merle, are these folks from BYU giving you some trouble?” The lady clerk responded, “I’m sure they won’t be no trouble, Sheriff, they were just passing through to Sheridan. Ain’t that right, boys?”

We nodded our heads, picked up all our luggage and headed for the door, when the Sheriff stepped in front of the doorway. “Now looky here,” he said, as he unfastened his leather duster to reveal a silver badge and a brown UW Cowboys shirt. “We don’t welcome your kind, so git!!” Then he spit tobacco saliva in my face as he rested his right hand on his holstered revolver.

The other two much smaller men laughed and jeered, and one snorted, “That’ll show em, Sheriff!”

We made it safely to our car, only to recognize both headlights busted out and a huge UW scratched into the hood.

A police car followed us out of Laramie all the way to Rock Springs, where we finally pulled over to rest at 4am.

This is why I hate Wyoming so much.