When I was growing up, my sisters and I were enamored by the stories written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, also known as the Little House on the Prairie series. (For those of you thinking, “Oh, I remember that TV show,” it’s not your turn to talk. These are books.) Early on, my favorite part was the fact that my older sisters were apparently named after the older two of the Ingalls girls: Mary and Laura. I probably asked my mother at one time or another why she didn’t name me Carrie, or even Carrie Grace, after the younger two girls.

Laura wrote about experiencing many “firsts,” from eating an orange as an adult to seeing the cross-country railroad being built. I remember her marveling that while horses could make twenty miles in a day, a train, also called an “iron horse,” could go twenty miles in an hour. That was remarkable for the times. As my father would have said, “Everything is relative.”

Now, here in Aniak, Alaska for a couple of months I have a little iron horse of my own on which to toodle around town. Most people call these things four-wheelers. Anyway, I am indeed learning to run the cantankerous little thing. To get on, I swing a leg over, as if mounting a horse; the brake, throttle and starter are on the handlebars, and the gears are a small foot pedal. When I turn the key to start it up I often murmur, “Come on now, Betsy,” while I might say “Whoa, Nellie,” while applying the brakes. I have learned that Betsy/Nellie does not like to be bothered when it’s twenty below.

In science class my borrowed fifth graders have been studying technology, and some of the benefits and problems associated with new inventions. Machines for faster transportation are obviously a topic of much discussion. And while I could certainly walk to school, having a mechanical pony of my very own has done much to expand my world.