Page 3 of Grown-Up Second Chance

“Kathleen!” I yelled.

“It’s a stop sign,” she said. “I stopped.”

I took a deep breath and checked to see if Liz was okay.

She’d apparently seen the sign and had braced herself.

“There’s the office.” Kathleen pointed to a stained log structure.

I picked up my purse. In the division of duties, reservations and checking in had fallen to me as I was deemed the most internet and financially savvy.

The office was part of the store, which was filled to the brim with everything an East Coast tourist could want, including candy masquerading as bear poop and hats with moose antlers. Here and there were actual treasures: locally handcrafted pottery and watercolors of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

“We’re checking in,” I told the woman behind the counter and gave her the name and confirmation number of the reservation.

“Ah, yes. Welcome to Happy Trails Resort,” the woman said with a perky smile.

Why did park owners use lame names and hire well-preserved cheerleaders to staff the counter? The woman didn’t appear to be too much younger than I was, but her hair was colored and styled, make-up fresh. Pretty earrings dangled from her lobes.

My gray hair needed a cut and I had no idea where my make-up bag was.

I could also stand to lose a few pounds.

I’d start every morning with a brisk walk, I vowed.

“Ah, here you are,” she said.

A few minutes later, I walked out with a map, a list of rules, and several brochures of things to see in the area that weren’t Yellowstone National Park.

After clambering back into my seat, I told Kathleen how to get to the site. The places were laid out in rows with a big loop that encompassed the entire area. We had a site at the end of a row that contained sites numbered twenty-one through thirty.

“Turn there,” I said when we got to the row.

Kathleen sailed right past.

“You missed it.”

“You didn’t give me enough warning,” she huffed. “I’ll get it on the backside.”

We made the loop and she entered the row marked thirty-one through forty from the other side and pulled into our site.

“All the other RVs are pointed the other way,” Liz observed.

“So we’re rebels,” Kathleen said. “Can you check to see if we’re too close to the hookups to put out the sliders?”

Muffling my sigh, I once again got out of the rig and looked around our space. There was a picnic table, but that was it. Nothing that held a large outlet or spigot.

I stood on the steps that automatically came out when the door was opened. I loved this feature. In fact, I had opened and closed the door several times before we bought the rig just to marvel at this mechanical wonder.

“There are no hookups,” I announced to Kathleen.

“That can’t be,” she said and shook her head. “I swear, Diane, I can’t count on you for anything.” Her tone went back to our teenage years and brought the same reaction from me.

Mentally, I gave her the finger. Then I stepped aside to let her prove her own idiocy to herself.

“Huh,” she said, hands on her hips.

She walked around the other side, and I followed, peering around the rig as she stared at the post with the hookups she’d been looking for.

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