Picabo Brings a Bit of Scotland to Idaho
Scotland doesn’t have sagebrush. It does have highlands, livestock, and mist. Visiting there is near the top of my bucket list. My mother’s maiden name was Gordon. My sister told me we’re eligible for membership in Clan Gordon. A neighbor from back in the 1990s was the leader of Clan Grant in North America. He told me the Gordons weren’t a clan but a “department”. Things must have changed because my sister visited Clan Gordon at a Scottish festival two years ago.
Highlands and Sagebrush
Why did I bring this up today? I was watching a video of a piper playing Scotland the Brave. The landscape looked so very familiar. I started scrolling through some old pictures and found some images from a spring day in Picabo. May of 2020. I’d gone there to break the isolation of the early days of the pandemic. There was mist settling over some hills and I just stopped the car, got out, and soaked in the atmosphere. I thought any Scotsman would feel at home.
Scotland With Sunshine
Many years ago I was talking with a sports columnist from a city back east. He had invited a couple of Englishmen to a baseball game. They were teaching one summer at a local soccer camp. The region was dotted with long, narrow lakes and rolling hills. The soccer coaches told the columnist the area was like Scotland with sunshine.
That morning in Picabo, the fog burned away and the sun broke through after a good 90 minutes of observation. It does a heart well to look out over the land and absorb the near silence.