Goose Creek

A breeze blows in off Goose Creek and sends glowing sparks swirling up into the night. The smell of a wood fire permeates our heavy jackets and on through to our skin, dry and warm beneath layers of clothing. We drink and roast marshmallows on sticks and tell stories.

"Do you remember that time in Vegas when it was so cold outside?"
"But we went in the Jacuzzi anyway?"  I finish my brother's thought.
"That guy was crazy," he says.
"Tell me about it," I say. I turn to my husband and my brother's wife, neither of whom were there, of course. "This old guy was swimming in the pool, and it was like, what?  Thirty degrees outside?" Jordan nods.

"Yeah, it was bad enough getting out of that warm water, much less swimming in an ice cold pool."

I smile, remembering. "And that time in Yellowstone?  When dad put his motorcycle jacket on Shep?"

My brother laughs around the lip of his cup. "That poor dog, out there in the snow. " We reminisce quietly, thoughts like embers of childhood.

Our spouses are used to our fragments of memory, melted together by days spent driving from state to state in our old van, camping in national parks across the country. My brother and I were fortunate in that we saw much of the United States as children, and we were made aware of the natural beauty this country offers. We saw the vastness of the Grand Canyon and the staggering heights of the Sequoias. We swam in the wide oceans and waded in creeks little more than a trickle. It is nature that binds us together, and we try to get back to it as often as we can.

We sit around the fire, listening to the sound of the water slipping by in the dark, not wanting to end the night and enter the small circles of our tents.  Remember?  Remember when?

Have you ever been camping?  Where would you like to go camping and why?