I spend a fair amount of time traveling on Idaho's back roads. That's not a choice but more of a necessity, since some of the places i like to spend time are off the beaten path and not accessible on the well-traveled I-84 corridor.
Like all roads, some back roads are better than others. Some are pretty well-maintained and are smooth driving. Others, however, are nothing more than rutted washboards that could vibrate the fillings out of your teeth if you travel at a speed greater than 10mph. Some are wide enough to allow two vehicles to to pass quite comfortably, while others are so narrow that when you pass another vehicle you can shake hands with the other driver just by sticking your hand out the window.
Sometimes the road (if you can call it that) is so narrow that only one vehicle can pass through at a time and it becomes a delicate dance of who gets to go first, provided there's even a place where the losing vehicle can pull off the road. My husband tells me there is actually a backwoods etiquette about who has to yield in such a situation but I can never remember what it is. I prefer to use my own rule of the road which is whoever is driving the bigger vehicle gets to go first. This is especially hair-raising if you're in the vehicle that's on the side of the road where there's a steep drop-off - usually into a raging river. Those are my favorites.
Whatever the condition or size of the road, there's always one thing you can count on when traveling a back road and that's cattle (or cows as I like to call them, which is a dead giveaway of my New England heritage).
"Free-range cattle," as they're called, can be found anywhere on back roads, hence the term "free-range." These lucky bovines can come and go as they please, unencumbered. They're not restricted to the confines of a pen or a fence boundary. I'm sure if cows could feel an emotion like envy those who are restricted to the feed lots would look at those free-range cows as lucky free spirits living the high life.
Inevitably, while driving on a back road one is bound to come across some of those free spirited cows, usually as you're coming around a blind corner, only to find a herd stretched across an already narrow road, doing whatever it is that free-range cattle do.
Recently, while driving alone on a back road to a camping spot that my husband had gone ahead to secure earlier in the day (on the off-chance that some lucky camper would find it in the middle of nowhere), I came across a group of three cows standing in the middle of the road engaged in a bovine Mexican standoff.
They could have been bulls for all I know, except none of them had horns. To me, horns mean it's a bull but apparently that's not always the case, according to my husband who grew up on a farm in Kansas.
These three cattle stood head-to-head pushing each other like rugby players in a scrum while all the cute little calves were grouped around them in a circle watching the action, probably talking trash to each other about whose mom (or dad) was going to kick the other cow's ass.
I came to a stop, undecided whether I should sound the car horn to try to get them to move or just come to a stop to avoid hitting any of them. I decided to stop and wait it out since I was in no hurry to get where I was going. All that waited for me at the camp site was dust, heat and flies.
In the end, the standoff ended peacefully without bloodshed. The combatants simply drifted apart, rounded up their offspring and headed into the dense underbrush,no doubt to compare notes to determine the winner.
One cow, however, was in no hurry to leave the road. She stood at the end of my hood staring at me with her large brown eyes. I returned her stare with my own cow-like eyes (as my husband is fond of describing them) until she turned and, with a lazy flick of her tail, sauntered leisurely down the road, letting me know exactly who didn't belong on that road by letting loose a large cow pie in the middle of it.
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