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Backroads with Laura
Laura, my oldest daughter, will begin studying neuroscience at Washington State University in Pullman this fall just a few miles from where I grew up in northern Idaho, where much of my family still lives. North Idaho is also where Laura was born, slipping into my hands, the first to touch her, in a small apartment bedroom eighteen years ago under the watchful eye of a midwife. In spite of knowing what to expect, I was struck with awe at seeing the tiny life emerge in front of me. Our lives have followed a scenic route since then, sometimes on different paths, sometimes the same, schools big and small, here and there. Through it she has found interests, aptitudes and herself, graduating a large high school¹ with a perfect GPA, awards and honors. As she travels the road to adulthood, I plan another scenic route. A long spring has left snow to linger in Idaho’s mountains, precluding plans I’d made earlier to follow dirt or gravel most of the way north to her college orientation. As with life, we improvise. We set out under an azure sky across the temporarily green, but usually brown, Boise Foothills on Cartwright then Dry Creek Road to Highway 55. We enjoyed a lazy morning so it’s already lunch time when we descend the grade into Horseshoe Bend. “I think there’s a Subway or something in the gas station on the other end of town,” I say to Laura. “Shall we stop?” “Yeah, I think I remember that too,” she answers. “Sounds good.” A rider on a V-Strom parks alongside after we’ve finished our sandwiches and are getting ready to leave. “Where ya headed?” he asks as we pull on our jackets and gloves. “Up to Moscow for my daughter’s college orientation. How about you?” “Just doing the local loop,” he answers, meaning up Highway 21, across the Banks Lowman Road and back to Boise on Highway 55. Or vice versa. “Nice,” I say. “Beautiful day for it.” I enjoy the implicit camaraderie of riders, though am curious of its substance. It must be more than owning a kind of vehicle. Do we see ourselves in the same way, perhaps a little defiant, at ease in the elements, frontiersmen without a frontier? ___ ¹ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDk4FVCzq-Y
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