It had been a few years since the family had been on a camping trip.  With the busy work lives of my parents, me at college, Erica in her teens, and Luke more interested in AirSoft shootouts with his friends, somehow we had drifted away from the tradition.  However, this was the summer to renew it.  After the fishing season was over, we went to it.        

There I was, gazing into the crackling driftwood campfire, listening to the sound of small waves gently brushing against the boat anchored onto the gravel beach, the call of an eagle soaring under the red midnight sky, and my family arguing about why the chihuahua kept insisting on investigating what was under the old abandoned barge that lay washed up against the bushes.

          “Chrissy!” my mom called.  “Chrissy!  CHRISSY!”

          Chrissy’s lightbulb-shaped head turned around so her dark protruding eyes faced us, frozen with the decision on whether to obey or not.  Before a few seconds had gone by, she sprinted back to us like the lead horse on a track.  I didn’t hear it, but I’m certain the eagle was cursing us for cheating it out of a decent meal.   

          “Good girl,” said Erica who was carefully roasting a marshmallow, paying close attention to the speed of its rotation and its distance from the fire, making sure the sugar-composed golden brown delicacy wouldn’t explode into flames in response to the smallest miscalculation. 

Luke and Taylor were jumping around the fire, quoting lines from cartoons as they flung around the burning ends of sticks, leaving trails of sparks in the air.  I shut my eyes as a swarm of them floated by my face.  I was sitting in the gravel, choking down some Spam I had doused in ketchup in a desperate attempt to hide the taste. 

 My dad was sitting in his camping chair, with his tide book open, looking back and forth between the tents and the water was slowly creeping its way up onto the gravel. 

“What is it?” my mom asked.