It is only about 75 miles across the panhandle of Idaho and Interstate 90 provides a good divided highway all the way across. There are some mountain passes, canyons and narrow passages. Speed limits vary from 55 mph to 75 mph depending on the terrain and the condition of the road. I really don’t know how many times I’ve driven across this part of Idaho, but it is a lot. We’ve gone between Montana, Washington, and Oregon almost every year of our married lives.

Yesterday when we drove through the visibility was slightly reduced due to rain and fog. It was no problem for us. We aren’t in a hurry on this trip. We planned it so that we would have short days of driving and plenty of time to sightsee, take walks, and rest.

Just East of Fourth of July Pass, the traffic on the highway slowed to a crawl. At the place where we encountered the slow down, there were signs indicating that there was road construction ahead. The signs warned that the left lane would be closed. I’m pretty sure that the majority of people heading west in that area are able to read signs, but that didn’t stop the traffic from forming two lines when it slowed down. We chose the right lane, knowing that the cars in the left would have to merge right. Others might have thought that the left lane was going faster. They stayed in that lane until the construction barrels forced them to merge. One semi rushed past in the left lane, sometimes pulling onto the shoulder to get by other cars. I don’t know what made that person feel that such a rush was necessary.

We never knew for sure what had the traffic so backed up. We drove for over an hour in the slowed traffic. It took us an hour to go six miles. After going stop and go for all that ways, we had to take an exit to have our boat inspected. Once the inspection was finished, traffic was beginning to move at near normal speeds on the Interstate. We did see a car being loaded onto a wrecker at the boat inspection station. There were also several other vehicles, including two semis that seemed to have dents in them. I suspect that those vehicles were involved in an accident and that was the cause of the slow down.

Driving at five miles per hour or even less gives one some time to observe other drivers. To me, it seemed obvious. We all needed to be in one lane eventually. And the lane we needed to be in was the right lane. Whatever was causing the slowdown wouldn’t be something that could be passed by two lanes of traffic. Therefore, I simply stayed in the right lane. But not every driver was thinking the way I was. I saw one drive change lanes four or five times and when all of that had happened he hadn’t gained many car lengths on me. When there was a ramp and cars were entering from our right, I made room to allow them to merge. It seemed to make sense to me that they had to get into the flow of the traffic some way. When we finally got to the place where we were forced to make a single lane, I allowed others to merge into our lane, even though they were ones who lacked the foresight to read the signs and merge before they got to the orange cones.

I suppose that some of the other drivers were in a hurry. Some of them could have been tired. Yesterday was the last day of a three-day weekend for many people. And Labor Day is seen as the last weekend of the camping season. I guess that one of the advantages of being retired is that we are not in a rush to get back home. We’ve planned to take a couple more days to get back to our home. There will be time for us to stop and pick up some fruit from the orchards on the east side of the Cascades. Our plan is to camp one more night before making it all the way home. That makes the driving easy for us. Hence, I wasn’t uptight when other cars got in front of us. I didn’t need to cut off any other drivers, even those who were rude or who simply couldn’t seem to plan ahead. I just left space for them and the drive was quite relaxing for me.

Maybe I’m learning to have a little bit different approach to life in general. I hope I am becoming a bit less stressed, a bit more calm, a bit more capable of accepting things the way they are and appreciating other people, even those whose choices don’t make sense to me. Mostly, I was hoping that the other drivers could reach their destinations safely. I saw so many examples of poor driving and misguided decision making as we were crawling through the traffic. I wondered about the other drivers.

North Idaho is not a place where you expect to encounter a traffic jam. And this was even slower than a Seattle traffic jam. Remaining calm requires an ability to adapt and to accept the circumstances as they occur. I hope I am developing a bit of patience and tolerance. Those would be good traits to have as I grow older. After all, I will need to be willing to wait for others quite a bit as I grow older.

One of the things that seems to be a part of this trip is the realization that there are simply more people in some of the places that I used to think of as remote. There are more houses in the country. There are more cars on the highway. Ranches are being replaced with hobby farms. The high country is crowded with tourists.

It seems we will all need to learn to deal with other people a little bit better.