I smiled as I was packing away the last of my things, looking through the closet one last time for anything I might have missed. Larry and I had decided on one large suitcase for each of us, and a medium sized one for Pete. Normally we took our vacations staggered, so each of us got a week with our son all to ourselves.

This was mostly so each of us could get some quality time with him, and let him see a great many things. With me, it was more intellectual things. The year before when he turned 12, we borrowed the small Winnebago from my boss, and Pete and I drove to several places that he loved. First we went to CJ Strike Reservoir, and I hung out with some friends from college as they took part in a sailboat race. We even went with them on the second day, as they had a 24 foot cabin cruiser, and there was room for all of us. Pete had a blast helping Mary’s husband raise and move the sails, as Mary and I in bikinis relaxed on the deck and chatted.

Then the next day we hit a fossil bed I remembered from my geology class at Boise State. And even though it had been over a decade, I quickly found the site again. We both had a blast crawling under the stone ledge with hammers and railroad spikes and digging out about twenty pounds of fossils. And that night we set up in a motel in Boise, and with a notebook and my old college notes cataloged what we had found. Writing down here and when we had found them, and gave basic identifications to each before sorting them into some boxes I had saved from collections of jelly jars we got from my cousin each Christmas.

And I could see the grin as Pete would pull out each item, look it up in the book, then tell me what he thought it was. Most of them were simple, as they were fish vertebra. Pete had been fishing since he was 6, so knew exactly what those looked like. But I could tell some confused him, so those I helped.

“Mom, what’s this one? It looks like it is petrified wood, but it also does not.”

And as I always did, he had to do the work himself as I helped him work it out. I asked him why it looked like petrified wood, and he pointed out it was round, and had a darker ring on the outer edge where the bark likely was. It was about an inch across, and I nodded. Then I asked him why it did not look like wood. “No rings. Mom, there are no tree rings here, is like these, lines from the outer edge to the center.”

“Radial lines. OK, this is a lot more tricky, these are more rare to find actually. That is actually from a palm tree.”

“Mom, there are no palm trees here though. Did somebody bring it here?” I laughed, and asked him again what age these were. He shook his head, and said about three million years old. But I reminded him this had once been Lake Idaho.

“Yes, and back then things were very different. The lake was as big as some of the Great Lakes back east. And the temperatures here then were more like say Florida. Hot, humid, lots of plants like palm trees. Just remember that, this was before humans as we would know. You remember Lucy, at that point humans looked more like chimps and were barely climbing out of the trees after losing their tails. Everywhere it was wet and hot, and more of the planet was jungle and woods than it is today.”

I helped him identify a few last items, and set some in glass jars with cotton to protect them. I was pretty sure some of what he had found were fragments from a turtle shell, but I was not positive. And the rest of the trip was much of the same. Three days in Boise, exploring the State Museum, the State Capitol Building, and even a day at BSU. My old professor gave us a tour, and Pete loved the Computer Sciences building, with the big IBM mainframes chugging away through stacks of keypunch cards and spitting out yard after yard of printouts.

I pulled the jars out of my purse, and Professor Wilkins laid them out carefully and I saw Pete making notes as he described what each one was. He complemented us on our identifications, and indeed those were turtle shell fragments. And several small pieces of palm tree trunk. And Pete got really excited when he identified some I could not as fish ribs and one that was the fragment of a mammal jawbone.

“OK Grace, Pete, these are really rare finds. Yes, we know there were mammals in the area of course. But the site is not on the shore, so mammal fossils are rare. But see the teeth? This was an ancestor to the pocket mouse I think. If it ran across the floor right now you likely could not tell a difference between it and a modern one. You hold onto this one, it is a real rare find.”

Pete thanked him, and after spending two days at Hell’s Canyon, we headed home. And two weeks later I was back at work as Larry and Pete took their usual vacation. And as usual, they spent it fishing, but in Wyoming this time. And Pete was so happy they had mostly lived off of their catch during that trip.

But this year, we wanted to take a special trip, together. I smiled and selected my short yellow nightgown, and put it carefully at the bottom of my suitcase. And after making a last check, I closed it up and set it by the door. I went to check in on Pete, and was not really surprised to see he was not there.

I went outside, and was not real surprised to see Kimberley’s bike in front of the house. I gave a small sigh and shook my head, and went back inside to have another cup of coffee. I was nibbling on a sandwich when I heard them laughing and running up to the door, and was not surprised when they came in together. Those two had been as thick as thieves since they were born. I asked Pete if he had finished his packing, and he looked a bit ashamed and shook his head.

“Well, you go get finished then young man, you know I told you to have that finished before you did anything else. Kimberly, have you had lunch yet?” She shook her head, and I asked her to help me as Pete went and packed.

“I’m sorry, mom. Pete did not tell me he had chores to do before he could take off.” I gave her a hug and we went into the kitchen, and I told her it was alright. Together we made some hot dogs, and once they were on the table I was about to send her in to get Pete when he came out and set his suitcase by the door next to mine.

He was really excited about this trip, and I could tell that Kimberly was not real happy about not being able to see him for two weeks. In fact, this was likely the longest they had been apart since she was born. And once they had finished and washed the dishes, Pete asked if they could go down to the river. But I shook my head, and told them to stay here today. “We are leaving early in the morning, and I don’t want the two of you gallivanting around like you usually do until it is almost dark and then going to bed late. No, but you can both stay here.”

Kimberly gave me a hug, and soon they were laying on the floor playing cards. And I looked again at Kimberly. At 13, she was indeed becoming a woman now. I even remembered the conversation she had with me a few months before when she had her first period. Thankfully Darla had already told me this, so I sent Pete out to help Dave and the hands with the cows as we had out first real woman to woman talk.

And I could tell she was going to be just like her mom was at that age. Darla was even more boy crazy than I was, and like her mom Kimberly was already developing a body that would attract the boys like bees to soda cans. A little butt that was obvious as she was laying on her belly, and her boobs which were finally in a real bra and not a training bra visible under her blouse. And Pete was going through similar changes. Most of the week he was spending on various farms and ranches around the ranch, doing odd jobs they might need done. His chest was growing, and his stick arms were finally starting to match his stockier legs from all the skiing and biking.

Just a few days before he had spent the day helping Mister Black in setting up irrigation pipes for his crop, and the day before trumping through the Chamber potato field. Both he and Kim with their rifles and a brick of shells I had given them, shooting all the jackrabbits they could find. Missus Chambers gave them $15 each for doing that, and in return they gave me $1.50 each to pay for the ammunition.

And I was proud that I had never even asked for that. I never had a problem with giving them what my grandmother always called “pin money” to pay for little things like that, but both he and Kimberly insisted that they pay me back for it, as they were doing it for money and not just fun. Of course, they also never knew that the money they got came from me. I gave several of the families in the area money, so they could “hire” them to do odd jobs. Mostly for Pete, but many jobs like that he would not do unless Kimberly was with him. The families did not really need the work of two 13 year old kids, but they wanted to make their own money to buy things. Kimberly had her eye on a new saddle, and Pete wanted his own car for when he turned 14.

I took another sip of coffee and watched the two of them, wondering if I should have another talk with Darla about maybe having Kim spend less time here. Neither of us were sure if they were actually dating or not, but they were at the age where it could start to happen at any time. If nothing else, maybe limit the time that the two of them were alone together, so they could not get into any mischief. I know I was not ready to be a grandmother at only 34, and I was sure Darla was not either.

Finally I had Kimberly scoot off home, as I had Pete check his suitcase a final time. And he laughed as he did, and realized he had forgotten his camera. Of course he had no film, so we got into the car and drove to Grand Central. I had him grab four boxes of 126 mm, as I grabbed five of 35 mm for my Pentax. And I of course grabbed four of 50 foot cartridges for Larry’s Kodak movie camera.

And on an impulse, I stopped at the perfume counter and grabbed a bottle of Charlie. Then in housewares picked up a small vanilla candle. After all, this was the first vacation I had enjoyed with my husband in ages. Maybe we could sneak back to the motel a few times while Pete was off somewhere else.

Larry gave me a big kiss when he got home, and after dinner he threw all the luggage into the back of the car for the next day. And in the morning it was fun to see Pete grinning as this was his first flight in a plane. First a hop on a small propeller flight to Salt Lake, then a Boeing jet to Los Angeles. Pete waited with me and pulled off all the luggage as it arrived, as Larry went to pick up the rental car. Soon it was all loaded, and we headed to Santa Monica.

The next three days were in three different places. After Santa Monica, it was to another area up North where Larry went to see a few of his old Army buddies. Pete really got a kick out of the giant Saturn V rocket bell in front of one of them, and was amazed at the size of it. I smiled and reminded him that was just one of five of them at the base of the rocket, so imagine how big the entire thing must have been. And he got me to promise that someday we would take a trip to Houston, to see the real thing at the Johnson Space Center.

After that it was a day at the museums at the La Brea Tar Pits, the Museum of Modern Art, then the Natural History and Science and Industry museums at Exposition Park. The two of them wanted to walk around the LA Memorial Coliseum, but I was a bit tired so told them to go ahead. Larry gave me a kiss, and I sat on a bench at the Rose Garden as they walked around the stadium.

But the last three days and four nights were the best. After leaving LA, we drove to Anaheim. Larry had gotten us passes for three days at Disneyland, and the rest of the trip was going to be spent there. And I knew that finally, I would be getting some quality time with my husband. Oh, I loved having our son being with us, but the most we could do was kiss a little and a little fondling before we fell asleep. And I knew for sure that at least a few times I would be able to talk him into returning to the motel as Pete would spend the day at the park.