Mike Jamison
BootsnAll Photojournalist
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Mike models his Jamison-style hiking sticks, handy for roaming the abandoned towns of Wyoming.
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After three years of working and attending college full-time, Boots writer and photo dude Mike Jamison needed a break.
Attaining a University of Wyoming sociology degree was nice, but in his heart wanderlust for the American West's wide open spaces abounds. "I need to get out a bit now," Jamison says. "Feels like I've been under self-imposed house arrest in a medieval monastery.
"Don't get me wrong, studying for exams, eating cold pizza and quaffing an occasional salty Scheafer before vespers was an adventure in discipline. But face it – at some point 'ya 'gotta cut loose."
So, with diploma in-hand and several months to go before starting a Master's in journalism history at UW, Jamison's back at his favorite pursuit: eating cold pizza and quaffing a few salty Scheafer's, as reason allows. This time however, pressure is off. Without exams the psychological thumbscrews have been removed, and the iron maiden of movement unlocked.
Dare we add travel and adventure to this list? Of course. That's why ol' Mike got a little, well you know, nuts recently and drove the new car full-tilt down Utah's Bonneville Speedway. (Read about it in Boots' pages, or wait for the movie.) "Okay, I went a little extreme but guess I've had that kind of travel bug all my life," Jamison admits. "In the 70s I grew long hair, hit the hiking trails and then joined the Marines to see the world." Patriotic duty honorably completed four years later, Mike moved to Wyoming, USA in 1978, where he's been ever since. Working as a broadcast journalist and structural welder supports his travels there. These include summer trips to northern Canada, Mexico, Yellowstone National Park and just about every U.S. state except Brooklyn – that's in a month or so. And yeah, Mike knows Brooklyn isn't a state, but after growing up in New Jersey and New York he also knows Brooklynites would disagree. Mike does miss the trees and seashore though, and he and his wife Paula periodically return to the east coast.
For now however, the fun continues. Only this time he'll center on Wyoming for a while. And in a such a large, sparsely populated state like that, adequate space and interesting sites await.
Look to the left for links to all of Mike's BootsnAll articles. Also feel free to email him at mjamison@wyoming.com.
