The first of three stories drawn from our road trip through the eastern Sierras and western Nevada. We visited the places, but fortunately, didn’t come across the ghosts.

I knew I was going to get to the campsite late – it was that kind of a day; that couldn’t be helped.

I also knew he’d be waiting.

Despite the fact I took the day off, I didn’t get on the road out of Sonoma County until nearly three and I was facing a six hour drive.

That’s the bad part. The good parts started the minute I headed down Adobe Road heading east and I turned on my “Happy Camper” mix on my phone and grooved along with Gladys Knight singing about the “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

I’ve always loved road trips, though they’ve taken on a melancholy tinge since Barry died three years ago. Road trips were our thing. The more obscure, the more bizarre, the better.

Fallon Cantaloupe Festival? Check.

Selfie at the Mojave Desert Mailbox? Definitely.

Hiking the longest continuous lava tube in Oregon? Why not?!

We bought this very Subaru Outback with the twin goals of putting on as many miles as we could and making it as comfortable a car-camper as we could. After a hundred thousand miles in three years, it was our veritable home away from home.

And then Barry was mountain biking with friends in the back country of Breckenridge when his appendix ruptured spectacularly and spontaneously, and he was mostly dead by the time their air-vac’d him to the trauma center.

I never had a chance to say goodbye. But, like how to comfortably spend a week together in a mid-size hatchback while not killing each other, we found a way.

I swallowed the lump in my throat as the Subie and I traversed the washboard rutted dirt road that led up to Buckeye campground. The high beams flickered with moths darting in and out of the beams as we took switchback after switchback and I felt grateful that while the road ahead of me shone brightly, I couldn’t see the sheer drop off just to my left.

A “Closed for the Season” sign greeted me at the entrance to the site and rather than a letdown, the sign elicited a smile. As I made my way down the main road of the campground, the ancillary roads leading off from the right and left to campground loops were blocked off with “Road Closed” gates securely padlocked across the entrance.

All the way in I got to the loop for campgrounds 1 – 10 and I stopped with the Subie’s lights reflecting brightly off the sign. Two minutes of lockpicking opened the cheap government-sourced padlock. That little trick boggled Barry the first time. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Does a girl have to give up all her secrets?” I replied. That first time, for the record, took ten minutes. I’ve been practicing, trying to impress someone who isn’t around anymore. Sad but true.

Subie inside, I relocked the gate (and gave myself another shot at unlocking it tomorrow). I slowly drove around the loop until I got to campsite #5.

He was waiting for me sitting on the picnic table.

I turned the car off and in the absence of the headlights the darkness swallowed the scene completely. I climbed out and grabbed the Coleman lantern and Bluetooth speaker from the back seat. Turned on the gas, clicked the piezo lighter and the lantern mantles erupted in searingly bright light.

“Still using the Coleman?” he asked. “I’d have figured you’d have gone for one of those LED units.”

“Have you ever known me to go new-school when old-school works just as well?” I smiled at him sitting there as I approached.

“Point, Charity,” he acknowledged. “Running late today?”

“What, you’ve got a hot date? Some sweet looking force ghost making eyes at you? Whose spectral ass do I have to kick?”

He laughed that laugh of his and my insides just fucking melted. I closed my eyes hard against the onrush of tears.

“Hey,” he said. “No crying until we at least get the music going.”

I blinked back the tears and nodded, afraid my voice would betray me. I set the lantern and speaker on the table and pressed the button that brought the speaker to life with a “boop boop beep! Bee-boop” and fiddled around with my iPhone until I found our playlist. Ray LaMontagne’s “Hold You in My Arms” broke the forest stillness.

“Ms. Berman, may I have this dance?” he asked standing and holding out his hand.

“Certainly, Mr. Fonseco,” I said and took his hand and we started slow dancing to the sweet tune.

“You’re such a sap,” Barry said.

“Takes one to know one,” I said finishing our regular exchange.

“Every year you come here on the anniversary of our proposal,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to, I don’t know, move on?”

“I will. In due time. Just… not yet.”

“Promise?”

I looked into his eyes and knew they would be gone the next day. I knew this embrace couldn’t last more than the night. And yet, I held him tighter and said quietly in his ear, “Shut up and dance.”