I used to love my summer vacation. It was a break from school. It was time to be spent playing and sleeping in. It was a time to be spent hanging out with my family.
That is no longer the case.
I still look forward to and embrace the relaxing break from school. I work, and it is not easy, but it feels like a vacation compared to school. Plus, in a few short years, I most likely will never see “summer vacation” again.
Life was so much simpler when I was a child. I had absolutely no responsibilities, besides watching over my baby sister.
The elementary school I attended was a year-round program. This meant that school was divided into sections, something like this: we had school for about twelve weeks, and then we would take a three-week vacation. Except summer vacation was six weeks.
Believe me, six weeks was never long enough for a kid. It was almost perfect for my Mom, who was looking forward to August by Independance Day.
My Dad was a hard worker. His job kept him so busy that he missed a good chunk of our childhood. Except, he always took a week off during my summer break to have family time. This meant packing up the car and taking a camping trip. Some summers we went to Ocracoke Island and some summers we went to the mountains.
We stayed at Deep Creek Campground in Bryson City. It was fairly consistent, so much so that my early vacations run together. My last two stays were definitely of note, adventures in themselves.
The section we pitched our tent at was mere steps from the white river where people in tubes often floated by. There was a shallow section, away from the rushing, frothing water where children could safely play. And that we did. The pinnacle of the play area was an ancient rock, carved by the water, that came out to have three separate layers. It was like backwards stairs, is the best way I can describe it. This will be important later.
The children that we often played with were all well behaved. We all knew how to get along. That and our parents were within shouting distance.
The summer of my eighth year, was the year when the girls and the boys began to discover their differences. I was seven, going on eight, so this affected me little. I still wanted to enjoy the hot afternoons playing in the water. The boys had other plans. They found a spot of muddy water behind a fallen tree and were playing in the swill. We girls stayed as far from them as possible, deeming them too gross to interact with. Than they found creatures of the mud. I no longer remember if they were small fish, insects, or worms.
The boys began to chase the girls, trying to touch us with the disgusting hell beasts. This led to much screaming and lots of chaotic running about. Most of the girls fled up the bank and back to their tents. I was cornered by the last boy. I began to back up the rock, and he was still following me. I was yelling at him to stop it and go away. Which he, of course, ignored.
I than ran out of places to escape. I was at the top of the rock. He was in between me and certain safety. I took a few panicked looks at the rushing water and I jumped.
See, a few days before, I learned a “secret”. I had never before gone into the water past the rock, as the water began to pick up speed there. An older lady taught me that there was still a bit of slow tempo water just beyond the rock.
I somehow thought that I could land in those shallows. I misjudged my leap and cannonballed directly into the rapids. I was a strong swimmer. My parents had put me in classes at least the summer before. Unfortunately for me, the current was stronger than the tepid waters of the pool at the YMCA. Also unfortunate, my head was stuck under water and I could not get free for a breath of fresh air. I was drowning.
It all went by so fast. I got my arms out of the water, trying to catch onto one of the abundance of rocks so I could stop floating away. My hands slipped on one, but I got my head over the surface. I tried yelling for my parents. I finalled found a sturdy rock, not so shallow that it was covered in slick mold. I hauled myself onto it, like the first fish that crawled out of the ocean, gasping for air no doubt. I hadn’t gone as far as I thought, but it still felt like miles away from my comfort zone.
The boy had vanished, never to be seen for the rest of my vacation. I finally caught my breath and tried to calculate how to get back to my tent. It wasn’t easy, as the adrenaline was turning into the shakes, but I finally made it back.
The next summer, was quite different. It turned out to be the last time I ever camped in the mountains, as of the date of publication. It was the summer before we went to Mexico and my parents had already begun to make plans (unbeknownst to me and my sister).
My father is an adventurous man with an adventurous car. He had a black 2000 Land Rover Discovery, perfect for off roading adventures.
It all began as we drove the Blue Ridge Parkway. My Dad saw the signs of a dirt road across the river from the highway. We doubled back to an RV park and stared down this large goat path. With little hesitation we began the crawl, moving carefully so as not to lose control. Because an accident was bound to lead to disaster. We could swerve right and crash into the face of a mountain. We could swerve left and off said mountain, crashing through a sharply sloping forest to the rocky raging river some thirty feet below.
Unfortunately, luck was not on our side as strongly as she could have been. My father was trying to be cautious, considering his young and precious cargo. He decided to drive a mirrors length from the mountain, tires eating up grass. This is how, at just the right conditions, we hit a boulder. This boulder, which jutted out from the mountain, was covered by a bush.
The car jumped, jolted off course by the sudden surprise. We were going left and this was about to be a Final Destination movie. Fortunately for us, we hit a growth of young trees as they gripped tightly to the mountain. Thankfully, they held the car back (and its occupants) from most certain doom.
We quickly evacuated from the car, in case the car was too much weight for the trees or crumbling edge of the road too bare. My sister and father had little room to climb out. I got my sister, barely even four-years-old, out of her car seat and ushered her out my side. We backed away and my sister began to cry. She was scared and did not understand what was going on.
I was having an adrenaline rush. In the face of almost danger, I was calm. I got her to calm down as my parents assessed the damage. This was just before the days when everyone carried their cell phone everywhere. My parents had a phone, but it had been left at the tent with everything else.
Dad left us by the car and walked back to the RV park. He called a tow company while we skipped rocks across a milky puddle. He decided to wait by the road for the tow truck and we headed into the encampment. They were all too happy to help, offering us anything we might need while we waited.
To do something, we took a nearby walking trail to a beautiful waterfall. There was a wooden bridge that crossed the natural pool. It was covered in the long forgotten carved names of people who had passed through. Mom carved our names with her Swiss Army Knife. My sister and I contemplated playing in the shallows.
The truck driver, with our crumpled car in tow, gave us a ride into Cherokee. We spent the night at a motel. We ended up having to buy clothing from a nearby gift shop. As I mentioned, everything we needed was several miles away at our camp site.
I am eternally grateful for how things turned out. I am so glad that no one was injured. I want to go camping again. Preferably in the mountains. I found my peace, lost in time.
Maybe one day I’ll win the next billion dollar Powerball.
