Holiday

I've been on vacation. My mother's family gets together every two years for a reunion, one year close to the family seat of northern Wisconsin, and the alternate one out somewhere, where one of the far-flung cousins live. This year it was in Washington State at Lake Chelan. I went from Saturday to Wednesday, although those days were filled with travelling because it actually takes quite a long time to get from Appleton to Seattle and then four hours in, over two mountain passes, to the place where the landscape turns to high desert, fruit trees and vinyards, and you don't need to drink that much coffee because of all the apricots and Pinot Gris.

On the way there I was a bit strung out having worked really hard the two weeks before, and especially hard on the Friday afternoon and evening delegating all the things I had going on the next week.

At the airport I rose to the task of volunteering to drive my parents in the rental car. I remembered the terror I used to feel, the first few minutes in a rental car driving in an airport garage and trying to find the freeway, after flying from Australia and not having driven on this side of the road in a while, or actually at all much especially when I was living in inner-city Sydney. But this time it was easy, because I drive all the time, on this side of the road, in a car not that dissimilar to the rental one we were driving. It was pissing down rain, but that didn't bother me either because I had been in several really scary rainstorms, one coming from Madison with my cousin the day the houses broke off into the lake and floated away, and the other one morning coming from Milwaukee when my flight had been late and I'd had to stay overnight unexpectedly. So this was nothing. The feeling of confidence was like a different electrical current - the old one high and jangling, this time low and steady. I drove my parents and was fine - at least until hunger and jet lag kicked in, around Leavenworth, and I had to turn things over to my very fine, brave and capable Dad.

Tuesday we were planning a boat trip. We were staying near Lake Chelan, which is an 18-mile lake that has a lovely boat that goes all the way up it, into the high mountains, to a small town that is only accessible by boat. I'd wanted to see it since my parents first visited about 6 years ago, on another trip. On Monday we went down to the dock and sussed out the times, the ticket prices, the extras, the options. Mom communicated all this to the relatives back at the house, and had in her head who was going and who was giving a ride to whom and how it was all going to work. And I really wanted to go.

I woke up at 6ish, on my foam mattress in what was technically a walk-in closet off the main bathroom in the back of the house (long story - not enough rooms for everyone) - and walked through the main bathroom and into the master bedroom in which my parents were sleeping, and saw my mother who looked very weary and in pain, who said she hadn't hardly slept and wasn't going. Mom has a bad hip. She's scheduled to have it replaced with a titanium simulacrum on the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, August 29. I'll be in Denver with the family for it. But in the meantime, she hurts pretty bad. She's got a cane, just temporary mind you, and lots of pain managerial drugs. The previous day had been a good day and she overdid a bit - walked around, went swimming with a few of us (doing water-nymph synchronized swimming poses for her sister's fancy new camera), and when we were walking to the big house for dinner she said to me, "Oh, I forgot my pain pill, oh well, I'll just drink". Well, one watered down brandy and one beer don't replace prescription pain medication, and she was in bad bloody shape the next morning. And, especially as she had already done this boat trip once before in her life (because if it had been a new experience I'll bet she would have gone, she never wants to miss anything), she did not go. And Dad did not go. So my sister and I were left in charge, and while we were fine, I think we were both a bit nervous.

The trip up was grand. The family members who went along were completely mellow and self-sufficient, and we just moved and migrated and mutated from the upper deck to the lower snack bar to the comfy rows of seats inside. We all stood up and gazed over the side and took a million pictures when we passed the peninsula on which the big house was. We listened to the commentary over the loadspeaker that talked of the lake's length (18 miles) and depth (almost 1500 feet at the far end, with a bottom more than 300 feet below sea level) and history (lots of glamorous hotels burned down and boyscout camps washed away in flood, just a few private residences there now and some burned stands of pine).

By the time we got to the town at the end, my sister and I were both starving and a bit weak and dizzy with it all. But there was the bus to the Falls. The last stage of the long journey. We decided to skip it and eat. But then we re-decided and went on the bus. The bus driver was a local, married to a native of many generations, and as we drove past the narrow, winding road along the lake shore and amid the watery ditches and dense trees, he pointed out who lived in each secluded log house - the teacher, the post master, the man who owns the barge service, the folks who run the bakery - and told us how life worked there - only one satellite phone, kids go to the new school and play soccer on the newly cleared field until Grade 8, then have to be boarded out to relatives or friends or strangers, back in Lake Chelan, for high school. We made it to the falls, walked up the short dirt track, took a billion photos from every angle, I was glad there was enough water to make it worthwhile, it was high and dramatic, with clear green pools below and then a stream running away through the fallen branches of lovely trees.

I'm sure this is the exact point when I unwound. We still hadn't had lunch, I was still hot and a bit dissheveled, and aggregately tired from the previous weeks of work, the flying, the drive, the shared responsiblity for everything in the morning. But despite that, I really did just let go. I relaxed, stopped worrying, and became confident. I was on vacation.

I can tell because of how I felt on the trip back down. It was the same length, exactly. On the same boat, exactly, although my family decided to camp out on the opposite side of the upper deck. I had bought a new hat (that said Stehekin, the name of the town at the lake's apex, in bold brown stitching), I had applied sunscreen thoroughly. I had had lunch - a lovely wrap sandwich and fries, bought by my resourceful sister while I was buying the hat and a t-shirt to match. I had enough water. We'd made it to the falls. I was with my family who loved me, loved each other, and were having a nice time. We had four more hours down the lake, past scenery that we'd already seen and already knew. We could just relax, and chat, or snack, drink, or do whatever.

I recall going to the ladies' room, on the lower deck just behind the snack bar, with its raised threshold and swinging bar doors on the stalls, and catching a glance of my face in the mirror. More tanned that in the morning, hair back in a pony tail, new hat, clothes fitting like on a hiker who's been at woods for a few days. Moving fluidly. Not worried about work, not worried about being in charge because of Mom's hip and parents' age. Knowing everyone had already had a good time, done what they wanted, accomplished their goals. Knowing the snack bar had everything I might need on the return trip. Surrounded by water, and dry hills, and pines and scrub, and lovely houses every now and again, only accessible by boat, some on a peninsula where a luxury hotel had once stood but had been lost to nature and history. Hours of it left to go. Somehow I felt completely relaxed. I had achieved the apex of my vacation.

I love that boat. I loved that trip and that town. If you ever get a chance to go, really do. And don't worry about lunch, you can grab something just before you weigh anchor and head back down again. Take the bus, listen to the funny local tour, see the falls.