One More For The Road

[{"type":"text","text":"We've all been there..."}]

One more for 1 27 24

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>One More For The Road: Saturday, January 27, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

We've all been there...

One More For The Road: Saturday, January 27, 2024

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Tourism

[{"type":"text","text":"Some places just aren't a good fit for RVs and motorhomes. "}]

The Needles Highway in South Dakota’s Custer State Park, near Mount Rushmore, is one of them.

Denise Yelton and Todd Beaver discovered that during an excursion in Custer recently when a motorhome intended to thread the Needles Eye Tunnel found itself fraying halfway through.

Yelton and Beaver, who have been “full-time RVers” since April, decided to take an early-morning drive on the Needles Highway on Friday. They departed in their Jeep Gladiator, leaving their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica parked at the campground.

“We left early because we knew the highway would get really crowded with Sturgis,” Yelton told Cowboy State Daily. “When we got to the tunnel, we pulled over because I wanted to record a video of my husband coming through the tunnel.”

When they pulled off the road, the Freedom Elite motorhome behind them kept going. That’s when disaster struck.

“I was sitting there waiting to see if he was going to make it through, and he got stuck,” Denise said. “I recorded it, obviously.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Aw, The Awning"}]

Drivers pass through three tunnels on the Needles Highway. The Needles Eye is the tightest at 8 feet, 4 inches wide and 9 feet, 8 inches tall.

Many people have attempted to get their RVs, motorhomes, and travel trailers through these tunnels, and many have failed. 

Yelton had seen videos of similar incidents and wasn’t keen to emulate them.

Yelton thought the Freedom Elite might have had a chance. Unfortunately for the couple pulling it, they were over-accessorized.

“The awning started scraping against the side of the tunnel,” she said. “When he realized that he wasn't going to make it, he started backing up, and that's when it was making all the noise.”

When the RV backed up far enough, the awning arm fully extended until it fell off. The driver backed out of the tunnel and parked in the pull-off to assess the damage with his wife.

Yelton and Beaver hopped in their Jeep and continued onward. Yelton assumed they conceded they couldn’t thread the Needles Eye and went back the way they came.

“I think he just thought he could get through, and maybe if it wasn't for the awnings, he possibly could have,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Don’t Be This Guy'"}]

Before Yelton posted the video of the RV incident on her 

, it had 347 followers. Three days later, it has more than 9,000 followers.

“It has blown my mind,” she said. “I’m not out there trying to get followers and stuff, but it's really blown my mind.”

When Beaver retired from the Charlotte Fire Department last year, the couple left Gastonia, North Carolina, in April and haven’t stopped since.

“We’re sharing our adventures and life on the road, one mile at a time,” Yelton said.

Yelton noticed that the Freedom Elite that attempted to scrape through the tunnel also had a North Carolina license plate. However, she figured that wasn’t a good time to chitchat.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I didn’t speak to them at all,” she said. “We just went on.”"}]

She did point out the numerous signs along the road warning drivers of the width and height of the upcoming tunnel. It seems the driver either underestimated the Freedom Elite’s width or overestimated his ability to get through the tunnel.

“He had to make it through the previous tunnel to get where he was, and that one was wider,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"There’s An App For That"}]

How can RV and motorhome drivers avoid these incidents? There’s an app for that.

As she was researching full-time RV life, Yelton learned the secret to safe travels is the RV Life app.

“We put our destination in the app, and it’ll tell us what we want to avoid,” she said. “That’s what you have to do as an RVer, and we knew that because we follow a lot of them.”

That’s why their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica RV stayed where it was. That’s for living and traveling the open road, not exploring routes like the Needles Highway.

“We never would have intentions of taking our camper on a mountain road,” she said. “We've researched enough about the areas that we're headed to so we know what to do when we get there.”

Yelton and Beaver have been savoring South Dakota for several days. The next leg of their trip will take them on Interstate 90 to Buffalo, then over the Bighorns to Cody on their way to Yellowstone National Park.

Thanks to RV Life, they know where they can and can’t go with their RV, lest they end up facing scrutiny on social media.

“We’ve seen a lot of videos, so we knew our RV would never make it through those tunnels,” Yelton said. “That was my first time seeing something like that.”

RV stuck 8 17 26

<title>RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A couple was videotaping the Needles Eye Tunnel in South Dakota’s Custer State Park on Friday when a motorhome tried to thread the narrow opening and became stuck. "I think he just thought he could get through," they said.

RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Make Liberty Win targeted former House Speaker Albert Sommers hard this year, with $5,824 and mailers featuring crying children.

The political action committee (PAC) that has spent $549,144 on Wyoming’s Republican primary election since Jan. 1 also attacked Republican Sens. Cale Case and Evie Brennan, Reps. Lloyd Larsen, Bob Nicholas, Elissa Campbell and Jr Riggins, and the former senator and now candidate RJ Kost.

It backs candidates who are members of or aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, as well as U.S. House candidate Chuck Gray and governor candidate Brent Bien.

Make Liberty Win spent more money attacking Case than any other Wyoming candidate, at $14,177.

The group leveled $13,220 against Larsen, $10,932 against Kost, $7,415 against Nicholas, $6,592 against Campbell, $1,472 against Riggins and $38.14 against Brennan, Wyoming campaign finance records show.

It spent far more money, a collective $489,474, backing its favored candidates.

Make Liberty Win is among Wyoming’s top-spending state-level PACS and traces all this year's contributions for Wyoming races to Virginia, 

It made headlines in 2024 for printing inaccurate information 

[{"type":"text","text":"The One With The Crying Child"}]

Sommers is running to win back the Pinedale-based House seat he forsook to run unsuccessfully for the state Senate in 2024. He faces Republicans Bill Winney and Matt McGinness in the Tuesday primary election.

Sommers reviewed multiple attack fliers featuring him, in an interview last week.  

“That one on child abuse was nasty,” said Sommers. “That was just beyond the pale.”

The flyer shows a girl, roughly kindergarten age, apparently crying and covering her eyes with her overlapping hands.

“When the Wyoming Legislature voted to stop the violation of children’s innocence, Albert Sommers voted to abuse our kids,” the flyer claims. “Don’t rehire Albert Sommers on August 18th!”

The QR code on the flyer leads to a site referencing Senate File 117 of 2023, which sought to forbid public school teachers from teaching sexual-orientation and gender-identity themes to children from kindergarten through third grade. It also sought to compel school district to tell parents of changes in students’ mental, emotional or physical health.

Sommers was House Speaker that year, and 

 at the time that he kept the bill in his drawer because he believed releasing it would violate his oath to follow the state Constitution.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Wyoming Constitution bans multi-topic bills.  "}]

The 2023 bill died. At the time, both Sommers and the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dan Dockstader, R-Afton, said the issues it covered weren’t unfolding in Wyoming’s K-3 grades.

The parental-rights topic exploded into controversy later that year, via an incident that unfolded at the high school level.

A Rock Springs couple filed a federal lawsuit alleging school district personnel hid their daughter’s transgender identity from them.

In 2024, Sommers voted in favor of a tighter version of the 2023 bill, which passed. It requires health notifications to parents and written permission from each parent before schools can give any sexual-orientation or gender-identity teaching. He voted in favor of another parental rights bill that year, expanding the parental right already in Wyoming law to the education sphere.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Because It Works’"}]

Larsen and Case told Cowboy State Daily in a past interview that the group skews its records, and casts as leftist maneuvers some nay votes that stemmed from structural or procedural issues with bills.

Make Liberty Win Director Barrett Young told Cowboy State Daily he doesn’t buy those arguments.

“Procedural votes still count,” said Young. “This is the biggest lie, the biggest sham these incumbent politicians love to pull.”

“A vote to kill a bill is a vote to kill a bill,” said Young. “I can promise you, when Albert Sommers was speaker of the House, if he wanted a bill to pass, he pulled procedural levels to pass it.”

Young called candidates’ protests of textual or procedural issues “political doublespeak.”

“This isn’t just Wyoming, by the way. We engage state legislative races all across the country,” he said.

Young said he doesn’t believe the negative, edgy mailers are backfiring.

“The truth of the matter is, the reason you see negative mail in every single race – you look at (gubernatorial candidates Megan Degenfelder and Eric Barlow) outside groups beating the crap out of each other,” he said. “The reason you go negative, is because it works.”

Degenfelder weathered an ad characterizing her as dirty for her past lobbying work.

Barlow has weathered multiple false claims alleging he pushed for fuel tax hikes when in fact he fought against them.

Make Liberty Win ventured money to support Rep. Joel Guggenmos, R-Riverton, who didn’t file to run after he was found to be living outside his district.

It also endorsed Rep. Scott Smith, R-Lingle, in his run for state treasurer before Smith had publicly declared.

[{"type":"text","text":"Smith’s run wasn’t a well-kept secret, said Young."}]

“It’s a really interesting election,” he continued. “I think the voters in Wyoming, they have a pretty important decision to make.”

Young pointed to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ backing of the 25% property tax cut and bills on social issues, which he called “every conservative’s dream agenda item.”

[{"type":"text","text":"For Case, the pressure is real."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“(The flyers) are really character assassinations,” he said."}]

Case said he’s counted at least three times a Make Liberty Win staffer has canvassed Lander and dispatched door hangers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Typically the canvassers are young adults from other states, he added."}]

“They’re like, here in Lander, saving my people from themselves,” said Case. “It’s kinda sad.”

Case said he’s also fighting Lander-based WCFL PAC, which counts a $5,000 donation out of Jackson among its contributions.

Anticipating the target on his back, Case spent more than ever – he estimates $20,000 by the election’s end – and took PAC money for the first time in his 34 years of legislative campaigning, he said.

Case said he doesn’t believe the PAC money will affect his character at this “senior” phase of his life.

“I mean, the mold of Cale Case is kinda locked in,” he said with a laugh.

[{"type":"text","text":"More About Sommers"}]

Other MLW flyers this cycle have accused Sommers of welcoming illegal immigrants into the state “with open arms!” and voting against preventing terrorist states from owning land in Wyoming.

He calls them misrepresentations of more nuanced votes on bills that were unconstitutional, problematic, or already ill-fated in the rushed budget sessions of even-numbered years.

“And a lot of people are just getting really tired of the negative ads,” said Sommers. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an effect on people. But I’ve heard more this cycle that people are just tired of the negative politics than I ever have before.”

The charge that he supported terrorists’ buyout of Wyoming stems from the 2023 House Bill 116, which Rep. Bill Allemand, R-Midwest, sponsored.

More Republicans voted against that bill than for it, and it died on a House roll call vote after its first full-chamber debate.

“The bill was very broad and in my opinion it violated the Wyoming Constitution,” said Sommers, referencing Article 1 Section 29:

“No distinction shall ever be made by law between resident aliens and citizens as to the possession, taxation, enjoyment and descent of property.”

That clause is in Wyoming’s Bill of Rights because of the European farmers and ranchers who bought land in the Cowboy State during its territorial days, said Sommers.

The bill would have banned anyone from Russia or China, or any designated sponsor of terrorism, from buying land in Wyoming except less than one acre and for a personal residence.

Had it passed, the bill would have forced any person from one of those countries to “divest” of the land within two years unless that person completed certain registration requirements.

“I don’t want to see China and Russia and other bad actors, you know, or their corporations or their surrogates, come and buy up land in Wyoming,” said Sommers.

But, he added, “That bill I think, was unconstitutional, and that wasn’t the route to get it done.”

In 2024, with Sommers’ aye vote, the Legislature passed a law authorizing more scrutiny and investigation of land transfers around critical infrastructures.

Yard signs 8 17 26

<title>Virginia PAC Backing Freedom Caucus Spends Nearly $550K In Wyoming Primary | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Virginia-based PAC Make Liberty Win, which favors the Freedom Caucus, spent nearly $550,000 on Wyoming's primary election and more than $60,000 attacking specific candidates. "The reason you go negative is because it works," said the group's director.

Virginia PAC Backing Freedom Caucus Spends Nearly $550K In Wyoming Primary

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Food

A so-called "prank caller" left a Cheyenne pizza shop holding 18 hot pizzas and a roughly $300 bill Friday.

[{"type":"text","text":"So L'Osteria Mondello did the only thing that seemed right."}]

The whole order was sent to the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Emergency Room. 

What began as a costly prank Friday afternoon turned into an unexpected meal for health-care workers after the caller who ordered the pizzas never showed up — and the phone number used to place the order apparently belonged to someone who knew nothing about it.

For L'Osteria Mondello owner Dave Agovic, the episode was particularly frustrating because those weren't the only pizzas flying through his ovens.

At almost the same time, the restaurant had another order for 12 or 13 pizzas and yet another for seven or eight.

"I had like over 40 pizzas in the same time," Agovic told Cowboy State Daily.

The kitchen was so slammed the restaurant temporarily stopped taking  orders, telling callers it could be an hour and a half to two hours before they could accommodate them.

[{"type":"text","text":"And the people ordering the 18 pizzas wanted them fast."}]

They told the restaurant the food was for some sort of children's wrestling club, Agovic said. His crew hustled and had the order ready in roughly 40 minutes.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then nobody came."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Something Isn't Right"}]

The pizzas sat above L'Osteria Mondello's ovens, where the restaurant keeps orders warm until customers arrive, but space was disappearing.

Agovic still had legitimate orders coming through the kitchen, and 18 unclaimed pizzas take up an awful lot of room.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, he called the number that had placed the order."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The person who answered said they hadn't ordered any pizzas."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That's when Agovic realized what had happened."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I figure out it's a prank,\" he said."}]

In about 3 1/2 years running the restaurant, Agovic said something like this had happened only once.

The restaurant generally doesn't require customers to pay in advance because Agovic doesn't want to operate that way.

"We trust people," he said. "Cheyenne is a small place, and Cheyenne is the place with wonderful people. And we really try to make sure we have that trust with the local community."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Now What?"}]

Agovic looked at the mountain of food and asked his employees what they should do with it.

[{"type":"text","text":"The staff tossed around possibilities."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then Agovic had an idea."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Why don't we deliver it to the hospital?\""}]

The crew agreed the emergency room sounded right, but he needed help getting the pizzas there. 

At the same time, a former L'Osteria Mondello employee who  worked for Agovic for more than 2 1/2 years stopped by to say hello. 

Ryan Lemley, 18, wasn't scheduled to work, but when he saw what was happening, he volunteered.

[{"type":"text","text":"Ryan loaded up the pizzas and headed for the ER."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He was my hero that day,\" Agovic said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Little Piece Of Italy"}]

For Agovic, feeding people is about considerably more than getting a pizza into a box.

He's originally from Montenegro, a small Mediterranean country in the former Yugoslavia.

He had lived in New York before coming to Cheyenne during the COVID-19 pandemic, initially expecting to stay only a couple of months.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he met a woman from Cheyenne and \"fell in love.\" "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She also introduced him to L'Osteria Mondello. "}]

"Actually, this place was way better than most of the places I try pizza in New York City," he said.

He became friends with longtime owner Joe Mondello, who was looking toward retirement but worried about what would happen to the restaurant he'd spent decades building.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, Mondello asked Agovic if he'd like to take it over."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Agovic told him he couldn't afford it."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Mondello offered to finance him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"There was a condition: Don't mess with the recipes."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Today, Agovic runs the restaurant with his wife, Anika Williams."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And Joe Mondello hasn't disappeared."}]

Agovic said Mondello still stops in, sometimes every week or every few weeks. Occasionally, he'll make pizzas and visit with customers.

"I feel this is still his place because that's his baby," Agovic said. "He built it for last 40 years. I'm just keeping tradition, and we are just one big family."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Food Is A Lifestyle "}]

That idea of food bringing people together is part of what Agovic brought with him from Montenegro.

In Mediterranean culture, he said, a meal isn't supposed to be something people inhale before rushing out the door.

"Food is just not quick bites," he said. "Food is more about lifestyle."

[{"type":"text","text":"Meals stretch out. Families gather. People talk."}]

At L'Osteria Mondello, Agovic said he wants customers to have some version of that experience.

"Many people can't afford to go to Italy that often or ever," he said. "So they can try a little bit of Italy in our restaurant."

And rather than letting hundreds of dollars worth of food go cold because of somebody's joke, the people at L'Osteria Mondello found another table.

“They are very hardworking people and they help save a lot of lives around. And I was like, let's donate, let's reward them.”

Pizza 8 17 26

<title>Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After a so-called "prankster" left a Cheyenne pizza joint stuck with 18 pizzas and a $300+ bill, the restaurant donated them to emergency room workers at the Cheyenne hospital. “Let's reward them,” said Dave Agovic, owner of L'Osteria Mondello.

Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

In the hyper-competitive world of multi-million-dollar western real estate listings, buzzwords like “regenerative agriculture” often pad a broker’s promotional materials. But a $29.9 million ranch just listed by Hayden Outdoors near Weston in northeast Wyoming has a little more heft behind its hype than usual.

That’s because Martha Stewart traded the Hamptons for the High Plains of Wyoming last year to come study the farm-to-fork ecosystem at Steiner Ranch, which was then called Sweetgrass at Thunderbasin. 

Stewart later praised the operation on her official Instagram account, highlighting the “extreme” energy of the ranch’s owners, Rick Steiner and Deirdre Wildman. 

She was also interested in the property’s unique capacity to feed its guests almost entirely from the surrounding land, praising multi-course menus that featured on-site harvests of goose, rabbit, beef, poultry and local berries, as well as produce from the ranch’s greenhouses, orangery, and its open-air culinary gardens. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ranch Grows Everything It Needs"}]

It was the culinary garden that got the ranch noticed by Stewart, who owns a 153-acre farm in Connecticut. 

“Last year, early in the season, we had a group of shooters here and they saw my wife’s culinary garden, which is truly an extraordinary thing,” Steiner said. “It’s a culinary garden that produces enough stuff for us to provide literally all the vegetables that 250 guests eat during the course of the fall season.”

Steiner’s wife, Wildman, gave them all a tour of the gardens, explaining their approach to a regenerative, farm-to-fork operation.

“So the guy said to me, ‘I gotta get our chief gardening officer out here to see this,’” Steiner said with a chuckle. “And we said, ‘chief gardening officer?’”

Steiner has heard all sorts of acronyms such as CEO, COO, CFO. But that was the first time hearing CGO.

“And then he said, ‘It’s Martha Stewart,’” Steiner said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting.’”

That Stewart visit wasn’t something Steiner thought would happen. But the following Monday morning he had a text asking if such and such date would work for Stewart’s visit.

“Sure enough, they were out here 10 days later and got the full tour of the gardens and the ranch,” Steiner said. “And we have a small animal farming operation that raises chickens and turkeys and ducks and geese, rabbits and goats, and those also, both eggs and meat, are served to guests.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What It’s Like To Serve Martha Stewart"}]

Wildman served breakfast, lunch and dinner to Stewart. For breakfast she even used one of Stewart’s own biscuit recipes. 

The 5,582-acre Steiner Ranch in northeast Wyoming, a premiere spot for hunting trophy bull elk and mule deer, has just been listed for sale at nearly $30 million. Last year, Martha Stewart was at the ranch to study its farm-to-fork ecosystem.

One More For The Road: Saturday, January 27, 2024

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