Chapter 2

The girls and I stayed up until about two, just talking in their room. That’s when Tina crawled under the covers, pulled off her bra and panties and fell asleep. We went to my room, where Gail immediately crawled under my covers. Shortly after that, she fell asleep. Sam went on to bed and I slept on the couch in the living room. At five o’clock, Dad came down and woke me.

“Why are you down here?” he asked me.

“Gail fell asleep in my bed when we were all talking.”

“So? Why didn’t you just get in with her? I know you want to. If you’re worried about us...”

“It’s not that, Dad. We haven’t gone that far yet.”

“Well. I guess you don’t want to rush things then.” He went into the kitchen and started the coffeepot.

The one thing about my father is that he likes to check and triple check everything. I think that goes back to his Scouting days. While the coffee was brewing, he did another check. He did remember a few things, and added them to our packs.

At six o’clock we were on the road. We have a mini van with two captain’s chairs in front and two in the middle. There is a bench seat in the back. Gail and I sat there, and my sisters took the two seats. They could turn their seats a little and still be buckled in.

We always talked on trips. Dad concentrated on driving, which was a good thing. He would occasionally get into some of our conversations too.

“I walked the whole trail the other day,” he said. “There are clearings along the way where we can sit and rest. The rest of it is sort of dense though. Like I said, I don’t think anyone has been there in years.”

“How long did it take you,” I asked him.

“Three hours, but I didn’t make all of those stops, and we’ll be going a lot slower than I did the other day.”

It was shortly after seven when we got there. There was no parking lot and no gate. There was an old barn and the foundation of an old farm house. Dad pulled in almost to the barn. I noticed later that we were far enough off of the road that there was no way anyone would see the van. In fact, it looked like the stone driveway hadn’t been used in years either.

We got us and our packs out. Mom and the girls had worn light blouses and short shorts out there. They all stripped down right there and put on their hiking clothes. Dad and I already had our long pants on and t-shirts. We put our long-sleeve shirts on. We all picked up our packs and started walking.

We walked for about two hours, and came across the first clearing. Either the trees naturally fell that way or someone put three of them in sort of a circle/triangle. I didn’t see any evidence of a fire pit so I figured they fell that way. We all picked a spot and sat down. Although it was an otherwise nice day, and the morning had been a little cool, we all pulled off our shirts because we were hot from the hike.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Dad said. “This is the best place yet.” He was still on his feet, filming everything around us. He was filming us too.

“Honey. Put that thing down and sit,” Mom said. “It’s getting hot.”

Dad pointed the camera at her. “You’ve always been hot.”

We went on for about another couple of hours, and stopped at another clearing.

“Get comfortable everyone,” Mom said. “We’re stopping for lunch here.”

She started it off by removing her blouse and then her pants. Soon, we were all dressed, or undressed, like we are at home.

“I love this,” Sam said. “I’d love it even more if I could just take it all off.”

“I told you to get comfortable,” Mom said. We all froze. She was sitting on a log, opening one of her MRE’s. “What?”

“What are you saying, Mom?” Sam asked.

“I told you to get comfortable,” she said. “If that means taking the rest of it off, then...”

“But we never...”

“Are you serious?” Tina asked. She had a big grin on her face. Mom just smiled back and nodded.

“What brought this on?” Sam asked her.

“I don’t know. We’re always on the lookout for someone disturbing us at home. You kids are old enough now that it’s ok to do whatever you want to do. Gail. If you want to do anything, I promise it won’t get back to your parents. Like they say, what goes on here, stays here.”