Postcards: Story 5 - The Trip

There were five of them in the car. Johnny was driving, as he had ten years ago, and they were heading back to the lake. Back then it had been stiflingly hot and the trip had been intensified by the real possibility of breakdown on any of the steep hills along the route. The original car had "drunk" an entire bottle of oil on the short 30 miles round trip from their communal student digs. Today the air con cooled them as they chatted amiably about times past, and their new homes and children. At lunch, as scheduled they arrived, and parked as close as they close remember to that spot where the picnic table had been. There was new outdoor furniture, gravel paths, cyclists and families struggling through home-made sandwiches. The original copse of trees where Sarah had disappeared with Phil had been cleared and there was no-where to pitch a tent even if they had wanted to.