This photograph is proof. Proof that this event actually happened. We were there, the entire family, and the bus. I am the one with the super colorful pants. This, along with another almost identical one are the only pictures from the campout. I’m happy for that. I’m glad there aren’t any others, showing us in our various activities. The reason is, that this trip has reached mythical proportions in my mind. I like it that way.

For some reason, this trip has become so filtered with the rose colored lens of fond memory that it stands out in my mind. It has been transformed to a magical journey, with grand and beautiful sights in every mental image. I tagged along with my brothers to explore an abandoned and rotten mobile home on the property, which in my youth, wasn’t trash but some relic from the past to be explored like ancient ruins. We scrounged for parts to build our canopy in a half collapsed storage shed. As a family, we hiked up a stream sprinkled technicolor bits of glass and an old, half submerged, pickup truck. I see this clearly and it is beautiful. My brothers and parents may have seen it differently. At any other age, even I might have seen it differently. I might have been wishing to be off with friends, or made angry by the littering and waste. Somehow, this set of memories was preserved and, most likely, embellished in my mind.

I have my own family now, and my own bus. I hope my boys will get to have a similar experience.