Riley and I pitched our tent on a bluff above the blue Pacific and listened to the ocean roar.
It was a last-gasp summer camping trip for my younger daughter and me. We knew these days were numbered.
Warm days. Sunny days. Beach days.
Forget official summer. Summer in October is one of the great things about California. So for years, the Cassidys have gone autumn camping to watch the sun set and say goodbye to another summer.
Our numbers have dwindled. Wife Alice and older daughter Bailey, 12, are now both of a mind that if God had meant for people to sleep in tents, he wouldn't have created beds.
Riley, nearly 9, has yet to consider the cosmological significance of comfortable beds.
And so we camp.
Autumn, summerlike or not, turns me reflective. Maybe it's the odd angle of the sun or that cycle-of-life thing, the thing about endings, death, dormancy.
And this autumn I realized that the numbered-days issue goes way beyond the weather.
How long before Riley embraces comfortable beds over sleeping bags? How long before Bailey and Riley are asking for the car, or going off to college or just going off.
Our children will grow up and start lives that may not include last-gasp summer camping trips. Or me, for that matter.
So, I was determined to soak up our weekend together.
What I discovered is this: If you get the chance to spend time with a nearly 9-year-old, take it. They have a different way of looking at the world and a mysterious way of making you look at it that way with them.
Over two days perched above and walking along Manresa Beach in Santa Cruz County, we saw a school of dolphins frolicking just off shore.
We saw bullwhip kelp that looked like a ferocious sea serpent washed up on the beach. We saw a full moon that beamed so brightly that we didn't need flashlights.
We took a long morning walk and found a Frisbee on the beach.
We were making good progress on catch, return, catch, return. Then Riley upped the ante: ``Diving catches!''
We lunged and tumbled in the sand like a couple of nuts.
Riley said she loved me. Again and again. ``I don't know how many times I've said that,'' she said.
And I told her you could never say it too much. At which point she tested the theory: ``I love you. I love you.
I love you. I love you.'' This went on and on but never got old.
Back at our campsite, Riley sighed, ``Every camping trip, there is a time like this and it's my favorite time.''
And I knew exactly what she meant. We had absolutely nothing we had to do.
We read leisurely. Me occasionally nodding off (apologies to Bob Woodward). Riley occasionally cackling while reading passages of ``Dear Dumb Diary'' out loud.
We studied the moon.
``Dad, are there aliens on the moon?''
``I don't think so.
''
``How do you know?''
``Well, people have been on the moon. Astronauts.
They didn't say anything about aliens.''
``Maybe aliens adapt like desert animals. They're there, even though we don't know they're there.
''
``I suppose so,'' I said. And I honestly gave the idea some thought.
At dawn, we heard a rooster crow.
The moon was still hanging in the morning sky. It became pale and soon faded into oblivion.
Back on the beach, Riley said, ``We're on the very edge of California.
'' Very edge of the United States, I said.
Riley splashed into the water and laughed at the thought of being out of the country. I started to say it didn't work that way, but you know what?
It occurred to me that maybe that's exactly how it works.
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