Leaving

At the end of our family vacations, my Dad sometimes took a photo of one or of all of us as we packed to leave the summer spot. I often contrived an expressions of mock sadness for these ceremonial snapshots. On other occasions, I really was unhappy about ending the adventure.

Here is a photograph that captured genuine sadness. We had just spent a month at a cottage in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. I had become attached to two dogs that hung around the lodge property, and I did not want to leave them. I had been crying just before my Dad snapped this photo. I remember that he tried to cheer me up as he focused the frame.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, July 1967. There's the gold Buick LeSabre, trunk open, ready for loading. We left Rocky Mountain National Park and drove to Mesa Verde.

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Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, July 1967. This is one of the dogs that stole my heart that summer. He's standing at the entrance to our rental cottage. I wanted a dog badly, and my encounter with this hang-dog occurred two years before Gigi came to live with us.