From the Editor: When Summer Meant Everything
Since childhood, June has always felt like the beginning of something bigger.
When I was young, June meant family vacations. These were the times when my parents loaded us into the car and took us on adventures we would never forget. June still carries that sense of anticipation for me.
My parents made sure we saw things that stayed with us, like trips to the redwood and sequoia forests. Trees so massive you could drive through them or hole up in them during a winter storm. At Balch Park in Tulare County, California, we camped among those giants, hiked with my dad, and climbed onto fallen trunks that dwarfed our car. My siblings and I caught polliwogs from the small lake at the center of the campground, trying (and failing) to keep our shoes and socks dry. We fit our adolescent bodies into prehistoric granite basins known as the “Indian Bathtubs,” watched deer wander through camp at dusk, and sat at the campfire, toasting marshmallows beneath a sky so full of stars that it felt close enough to touch.
Balch Park was a place that we returned to again and again throughout my childhood.
I went back years later, in 2005, after losing both of my parents earlier in the year. My first morning, up at 6:00 AM before anyone else to make coffee, I watched as a mother deer and her two spotted fawns moved quietly out of the surrounding fog and wandered through the campsite. In that moment, I felt like my parents were there, sharing in it with me, just as they had so long ago.
Some trips were quieter, like the ones we took to Mission San Juan Capistrano and other California missions. Others were full of noise and energy. At the Flintstones Bedrock City campground during our Grand Canyon trip, my siblings and I raced down the dinosaur slide, played hide and seek in cartoonish buildings, and ate breakfast at Fred’s Diner. The wind blew fiercely at times during our stay. My dad (always prepared) had weighed down our tent before a windstorm that sent our neighbors’ tents tumbling across the campground. As a child, I shrieked with laughter as I watched tents roll across the ground like tumbleweeds. As an adult, I now feel sorry for those folks who were likely at the nearby Grand Canyon as their homes away from home went rolling across the open fields.
I took my son to see Bedrock City during a 2007 trip to the Grand Canyon while on spring break from the University of Wyoming. I watched him dart in and out of the Flintstone dwellings and slide down the dinosaur slide that I had as a child with that same sort of first-time glee that is so particular to childhood. The campground was quite a bit shabbier, but the nostalgia was just as shiny as ever.
Many of our trips fuse together in my mind. South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore. Minnesota to see my dad’s sister. Each one added to what now feels like a collage of memories. The awe I felt as a child, looking up at Mt. Rushmore, and the joy I felt when I got to select a souvenir. Picking wild strawberries and making jam with my Meema and Aunt Aulie, and camping with my cousin Ruby in a tent in the yard. These fragments of my childhood surface whenever I’m feeling particularly sentimental.
Growing up in Buena Park, California, meant regular trips close to home—Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and the Japanese Deer Park. Even as a kid, I knew how lucky I was to live in such close proximity to the Happiest Place on Earth. With everyone together, those outings felt like mini vacations in themselves.
These were some of the best days of my childhood, back when our family was whole. Not because everything was perfect, but because everything was new. Every trip held discovery. Every stop had the potential to become a story I would never forget.
As adults, we still travel. We still seek out those experiences. But it’s different. We plan more. We carry more. The sense of discovery is still there, but it’s quieter.
And so, summer doesn’t feel quite the same.
Sometimes I wonder if my parents felt that, too.
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