On the drive from the Salt Lake City airport to my aunt’s house in Soda Springs Idaho, I spent a lot of time
reflecting on all of the times I have used her house as a stopover when I was on a journey. When I was going to college in Billings Montana and my family lived in Arizona and Nevada, my brother Darren and I would drive my little Mazda pickup with Apollo and Lobo (my cat and dog). We made the trip every summer and Christmas break and would stop there on the way to where we were going, and on the way back.
I got married and my husband Jack started joining me on my trips, then my daughter Jordan came along and we moved to Nevada and our trips became less frequent. Then Jack got sick and we didn’t make the trip for a few years and when they started again, it was just me and my girls on our
way to our summer vacation. In 2017 I made the trip for the last time with Jack on my way to Montana with his ashes.
I have stood on the edge of my aunt’s lawn and taken so many photos of this valley over the years; in the spring when
everything is green and fresh and the sun is warm but the breeze is chilly, the air is sweet with the smell of alfalfa and you know summer is just around the corner; in the summer when the fields are amber and the combines are at work
(as they are now); in the fall when the leaves are falling, the grass is brown and the smell of wood smoke is in the air; and in the winter when the valley is blanketed in snow and everything is still.
Now my girls are grown and this summer I won’t have a vacation with them. Carsyn is working and living at my favorite vacation destination and Jordan’s work schedule didn’t allow her to join us when we went to the Tetons a few weeks ago. But they have begun their own journeys, using my aunt’s house as their stopover on their way to new adventures. I am so happy they are travelers and always on the lookout for something adventurous to do. I am also a little sad many of those adventures don’t include me, but I have my own to plan.
Postcards From Dirt 