Exactly 55

In 1984, my parents moved our family from Basalt, a town of about 500 in eastern Idaho, to Boise. I was eleven. There wasn’t enough room in the station wagon, or so my parents claimed, so I rode with my Grandpa Harold Ball in the U-Haul.

He was 69, silent, and drove exactly 55 MPH the entire 260 miles while every car on the road passed us.

“We don’t have time to stop,” he told me. I needed to use the bathroom for most of the trip.

That’s when I saw it for the first time. Malad Gorge, a canyon that drops from the desert floor without warning. You’re on top of it and over it in a split second. I needed to see it again.

Ten years later, I was studying fine art photography at Utah State. I stopped to photograph the Gorge on drives home to Boise from Logan. I explored the entire area, even clambered down the back side of the bridge and set up my camera on a rock ledge, something I’d never attempt today.

In 1996, I took my new bride, Samantha, and two of her sisters to see it.

In 1998, I returned with my 4×5 view camera, my dad standing right beside me as I worked. That day he told me that even though his kids were all growing up, he loved them just as much as he did when they were babies.

I was alone when I took this photograph on a windy spring day.

Someday I’ll drive my own grandson over it, slowly and silently, while he needs to use the bathroom.