This catagory includes everything that is West of the Misissippi River, but not California... which is listed under three separate catagories..."no cal" and "so cal" and "lo cal" . The American West is a vast, beautiful and always facinating area. I first saw it on a trip when I was 19 years old... looking out from a dome car on a long but amazing train ride from Cincinnati to San Francisco. I was a geology major at the time and didn't want to fly and miss the scenery.

I had never been west of Chicago before and wanted to see the landscape. It was so much fun, I rode the train back the Southern route to see a different part of the West. I moved from the East Coast to Southern California in the early 1970's after working in Manhatten for several years and never went back.