August Grover escape

credit: California State ParksWhen we were kids, August meant two weeks at Grover Hot Springs in the Sierras.   We -- well, mostly my father -- would pack up the orange VW camper and get the hell out of Fogust. Snug in our Westfalia, we 5 would cross the Golden Gate and escape the misery of that persistently foggy month that precedes San Francisco's true summer, which arrives like a charm every year with the return to school in September.

On the long trip, my sisters and I would take turns occupying the favored seat, the one between the built-in fridge and the cabinet with the sink, that allowed you to perch, on top of the food box, just about between our parents in their front seats and watch it all unfold through the big windshield.  From that seat, you could watch the landscape and elevation change.  You could see it all.  You could ride without a seatbelt.

No August ever comes or goes that I don't think about those weeks at Grover Hot Springs.  Those vacations were golden, at least for me, time I really looked forward to, even though it was two whole weeks of nothing but family, no friends.   

We would arrive and set up camp in the afternoon, after a stop in charming Markleeville to pick up any last thing we might need.  The days were blissfully all the same: wake up in the tent to the sounds of my father clattering at the stove, making coffee, making pancakes; eat breakfast; take my sisters to Junior Rangers if it was happening (I was too old, sadly); head to the pool with a book or two; read in the sun, flipping over periodically, turning as dark as our pigment allowed, but mostly flipping pages and pages in between refreshing dips first in the roaringly hot pool, then the cold.  At some point, we'd wander back to our campsite for lunch, showers, naps, more reading, maybe a trip to town, dinner, fire, sleep.  

Those days at Grover Hot Springs remain the definition of vacation for me: the openness of the time, the lack of lists and chores, the full abandon to stacks and stacks of books.

It was there that one year the actress Patricia Neal, now deceased, asked in her gravelly voice, "Can you get any darker?"  The truth was we were in the beginning of our trip, so yes, in fact, we could.  And we did.  Only Carlita, with her sensitive skin, had to wear a t-shirt and zinc oxide on her face.  The rest of us would read and turn and go darker and darker with every page.

It was there that I devoured all of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy and everything else she wrote.  We'd bring stacks and stacks of books with us on this vacation but would inevitably run out, and then there'd be a run down into Carson City or Stateline to a bookstore for more.  We'd shower off the suntan lotion, get dressed and head into town on our errand, eager to buy and return to our drowsy, lazy schedule.

Every August I think about going back.  What if I were there right now?  What bliss.

As kids, that trip to Grover Hot Springs was the last blast of summer, real summer, before Labor Day and the school year.  It was so simple and so slow.  Which is something I long for now. A lot.

In the annual cycle of my life now, this time of year is busiest.  At my job, I'm getting ready for our annual audit.  The deadlines are faster and more furious than at any other time of year.  The pressure and stress are bigger.  In the garden at home, the harvest is On, the drive to stay on top of all of those tomatoes, even as the apples are beginning to ripen, is strong.  It's the fullest time of year, the point at which I most want to lay myself down and cry Uncle.

I long for simpler times.  For reading next to a pool, stretched out on my belly in the sun.  Careless.  Carefree.

I snatch some semblance of Grover Hot Springs as I can, reading in the morning, reading at night, creating time around the busy of the moment to indulge in stacks of books. It's not quite the same, naturally.  My legs are pale.  But it's the best I can do.  And because it's August and I can't help remembering, I can't shake the shock of the cold pool following the hot and, once dry, the feel of paper pages under my fingers, eyes trained on the sunny page.  

I need to get back there. Soon.

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