This is perfect.

Irina and I went for a morning run in the fresh, clean, cool air. I noticed a postage stamp-sized sandy beach on the lake. On impulse, I thought I would try a swim. I took off my clothes and dived into the water. I wasn’t sure what Irina, after growing up in Ukraine, would think.

PERFECT BY JAMES MARTIN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 103

Irina was practicing for her interview at the embassy. “What do you plan to do in the US?” the immigration officer might ask. Irina would say, “I’m going to meet my husband’s family.” We had been married five weeks. She would add, “My husband doesn’t like cities, so we are going to see nature.”

I hadn’t been camping in the States for years but my memories were still sharp. I wanted to find a campsite with a lake, the ground covered in pine needles.

“Campgrounds near me” found me “Rancho”, a building surrounded by concrete. The door whisked open automatically and I stepped into an airconditioned office with three people at their desks waiting for something to do. They tumbled over themselves to help me.

“Oh, yes, we should have no problem with tents,” said one. “Can we have a site near the water?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. On his site map he showed me the artificial pond. “As you can see, there are showers here on the other side of the parking lot, behind the amphitheatre, and the lake is only a half mile from there.”

“What about on the edge of the lake?” I asked, “What are those little icons? They look like tents.”

“Those are the premium sites. They have all the hook-ups for waste disposal, electricity, and water.” Clearly not for low-life tent dwellers. The place was new, the trees were tiny, and there was a definite lack of wildlife. Definitely not for us.

It was less than a month after the summer solstice so we had several hours of daylight to find a campsite—there was no hurry. I drove down a couple squiggly lines on the map ending in empty hillsides or dead-ends. I followed several “Campground This Way” signs, not finding any campground.

Then I pulled into a campsite on Granby Lake. The caretaker, Lucy, said, “Yeah, sorry, I just gave out the last space for tents.” As an afterthought, she said, “But you can look around. If you see a place, you’re welcome to it.” A shrug of her shoulders added, “I guess.’

Two minutes later we found a truly perfect site. I parked the car near a picnic table, trees standing tall and straight with branches keeping the place cool, and there were no other campers between us and the lake.