~~~
The dream itself did not wake Dan, but it was certainly a factor a couple hours later when, at 7:18 his eyes slowly came apart and he checked his watch. A car had just started, small from what Dan could tell, but with a noisy aftermarket exhaust, and pulled out from where he guessed the camp office might be. Whomever was driving it crept slowly, clearly trying to keep the idle low and the impact on the few quiet crackling fires and birds monopolizing the waking hours minimal. The tires cracked the gravel together almost soothingly.
Eventually, after the car had left, a few more people were up and about making noise, and the sun started climbing over the Mesa to the south on this slow-starting December day Dan arose. Outside the air was quite crisp and he’d guessed it might have dropped down to the upper 30s overnight. Dew had collected on just about everything, making the bench at the picnic table in his lot unappealing. A glance around told him all he wanted to know: Rachel was apparently gone, although the Smiths were enjoying a fire in her stall.
“Did you two scare Rachel away?” he asked as he stepped over the decorative barrier of rock between the two camp lots.
“No, no,” Said Mrs. Smith with a smile. “She just had some things to do up at the Mesa and in town she said. I suspect she’ll be back this afternoon.”
Unconsciously, Dan’s mood fell a little. But he moved to start making his own preparations.
“Would you like some flat cakes and coffee, son?” Mr. Smith inquired this time. He didn’t speak as much as Mrs. Smith, but that wasn’t saying she was particularly chatty either.
“Oh? You have all eaten then?”
“Oh yes. We’ve been here four days already and the good ranger has been up a good hour or so before us every day with plenty of food. …Apparently she likes to cook too.”
Daniel thought about it for a minute and then agreed, opening up a folding chair leaning against the table in Rachel’s lot, hoping it was not wet. He enjoyed some very buttery and perhaps vanilla flavored pancakes and conversed lightly with the Smiths for about thirty minutes before deciding he really needed to get more productive.
Following the meal he checked in with the camp host at the office, bought a small chug jug of skim milk and headed into to town in his pickup to gather a couple bottles of water, a pair of better-suited hiking boots, and on a whim a greeting card from the super store. The card didn’t really say anything except a silly comment and sketching of a dog with comically huge eyeglasses indicating the pup was, “Glad to ‘see’ you!” His intentions were to write a thank you note and leave it with Rachel following their tour the next day. He wasn’t sure how much longer he’d stay at the camp, nor how long Rachel had planned either. But he figured it was a good way to show his appreciation, and also leave it as an open invitation to more talk later if she liked.
Though the rest of the day had limited appeal as Dan shot a little pool in the camp office and awaited a return from Rachel, an early return was not to be the case until evening when Dan had left the camp again to go try out a local Mexican restaurant the Smiths had recommended. Many of Cortez’ residents and visitors on his venture brought up the unusually warm and wet weather. One did make note that the Sleeping Ute range had finally received some snow at the tops in the last 24 hours. Daniel pondered the timing with his drive down to the area, and Rachel returned while he was away.