We used to make the road trip between Flagstaff and northern Utah several times a year. We’ve done the drive so many times for so many years; I know every turn, and I know how far I am from my destination at every point along the way. Maybe it’s something about the season that’s making me think of it now — it was frequently and end-of-summer ritual, so late August feels like the time to be packing and driving through that long stretch of central to southern Utah highway, across the Grand Staircase and the descent from the north rim of the Grand Canyon, to finally cross the Kaibab plateau.

We’ve moved, so I don’t know when or even if I’ll ever make that trip again, but those highways and vistas are like smooth, familiar grooves in my memory, a very specific part of many years of my story.