Abby’s brother and father seemed to enjoy the camping trips. She and her mother didn’t. For her mom it was just too much work. She was always in charge of meals and cleaning, but when confronted with the narrowness of the Coleman stove and the coldness of the Sierra water, what were simple tasks at home became chores tolled like rosary beads: sort; clean; prime; grill; serve; scrape; scour; rinse.

For Abby, camping was too constrictive. She had to live in even closer proximity to her family. It wasn’t like she had the freedom to range (“you’ll get lost”) or sleep beneath the stars (“bears!”) or even to draw. The first time up there she sketched, taking special trouble with the pyramid shape and steely hues of Lembert Dome as seen, foot-frozen, from a matching rock in the middle of frigid Lyle Fork, and after she returned home she made an oil painting of her careful sketch. She was then enrolled in art classes because she showed some elementary watercolor promise, and her mother had found an old lady instructor who made her mark in the art world by scraping the brand name off oval bars of Camay soap, highlighting the floral framing curlicues with colors, and adorning the scraped central area with a portrait of a President, Elvis, or Liberace.

Mrs. Jukes looked for some moments upon Abby’s painting of Lembert Dome. Then she raised her own palette and recolored the picture, reddening the stone and yellowing the foliage to present Grand Canyon tones. Mrs. Jukes had never seen the Sierras.

Abby didn’t sketch the sights after that. She preferred to take notes and try rhymes. Kevin and her father liked to fish. Her mother seemed to enjoy complaining. Abby’s only favorite part of camping was to get up before anyone else and make her way, quiet like an Indian, to the mound of granite in the middle of the adjoining meadow. The ground was a little soggy and there were annoying clouds of dawn mosquitoes, but it was worth it to get to the stony bump, to perch on the cold rock creases and to watch the dawning sunlight sweep like a curtain of gold across the green basin. It happened every morning. Just once each day. And it happened fast.

Even with all of the planning, accidents occurred. Once Kevin whittled into his thumb, gashing his hand rather deeply just after his nosebleed had subsided. He had to hold his arm above his head for more than an hour before the wound coagulated enough. Another time, Abby’s father twisted his ankle, rushing away from what he was sure was a rattlesnake in the basalt rocks by the side of the road where he’d stopped, near Bakersfield, to pee. Even with all of the tire checking they picked up a nail on the drive home one trip out of a total of six. And although her father took all the recommended precautions to keep bears out of their food, securing most provisions in the storage locker and stringing the rest up from a tree branch, he didn’t protect them from the ravages of nesting rodents; the one time they left their shoes outside the trailer they awoke to find all laces chewed off at the eyelets.

Abby’s parents got very upset when things went wrong. Then they redoubled their planning attempts for the future. The pre-drive check became so rigorous that their departure was always delayed by at least thirty minutes. Her mother spent that whole time reconcluding that their arrangements couldn’t get more reasonable, and chirping at Abby to agree with her.

Kevin didn’t buck the parental planning. Abby tried to avoid as much of it as she could. Soon, his behavior was approved and she was called lazy. He seemed agreeable and she was difficult. She might have hated him for that, except that he was too nice a kid to hate. In fact, Kevin had no problem cooperating but he thought all the plans and checks were silly. He agreed with what Abby said about it, but he thought she was wasting her time trying to change their parents’ ways.

(to be concluded tomorrow)