In going through old family papers, I happened on a letter from my great-grandfather, John Foshay, to his wife, my great-grandmother, Martha (Whealdon) Foshay. It’s a letter composed mid-trip on a journey from Albany Oregon to California along what is now Interstate 5.

I love this letter for its sweet expressions of love, and for John’s vivid description of coach travel in the late 1800s in Oregon. Whenever I’m stuck on a plane waiting to depart, I think of John on the freezing floor of the coach, on page 2.