Wagon Ruts

Somewhere among the dusty back-trails of Eastern Idaho, an old forgotten wagon road bakes in the sun. The prairie desperately wants to swallow it up, to make it disappear forever, just as the people who made this road have disappeared. Yet despite the countless rainstorms that year after year wash away the top soil, and the cattle herds that trample the ground into brown paste, and the prairie winds that threaten to bury this holy place in sediment, the road endures. It cuts across the frontier in a searing straight line, as if the land itself was branded with hot metal. Its rivets are clear and stark in the afternoon heat.

It was at this spot that thousands and thousands of pioneers, adventurers, families, wanderers, refugees, entrepreneurs, and thrill-seekers carved their names one by one into the earth, until all the names ran together and all that remained was an ungainly scar. A mighty river of people once flowed here, people willing to take bold action, people with new ideas. These people made the West, or at least changed it drastically. They are all gone now, their names and faces long forgotten, the names and faces of their children forgotten as well. But their road remains. An accident of history, the byproduct of something much greater than itself, yet it outlived them all. From the looks of it, this old road will be around for a long time to come.

I wish you all the best Old Road. And safe travels to any who may tread on you. May you once again serve a higher purpose. You were a good old soldier, and perhaps your best days are behind you, but there’s still a job for you, still a chance for your time here to have some meaning. Sure most days you’ll go completely unnoticed. None of the travelers who trampled on you will come back to honor you for the role you played in their lives, in our history. Alone in the wilderness, forgotten by the world, you long to be useful again. Old Road, today you were useful. You were necessary. You were exactly what I needed you to be: a quiet spot for a tired, windswept tourist to stare at the burnt grass and think longingly about the past.