Empire Grade

Photo by Jonathan Cohan

“I don’t mind.” Wren pulled her legs under herself and leaned against the door. “I like old trucks.” Robin had the soft-butch look, hair like Jackson Browne, dark eyes, that serious mouth, and a decisive hand on the gearshift. Wren suppressed a desire to caress her worn suede coat. That, and the lack of coffee, ended conversation for a while.

They wound through redwoods on Empire Grade, the road that follows the ridge of a long mountain that everyone calls Bonny Doon.

In the opening scenes of A Circle Outside two women who have just met talk about their childhoods as they drive through the redwoods. You can get a sense of Empire Grade in this 2020 video by a motorcyclist riding down from near the location of the fictional women’s land, Ove. (Trust me, turn the sound off.)