8 FIRE BUILDING
Ginny’s sweet tooth and curiosity break the serious mood as everyone explains their favorite method for making s’mores.
The rest of us were raised in the shadows of the Cascades, so roasting marshmallows, breaking chocolate bars into squares to fit one half of a graham cracker, then building a gooey sandwich of the three ingredients was a rite of passage and ingrained in our minds.
While the girls discuss the finer points of roasting marshmallows, I finish my potato. I collect everyone’s paper plates and plastic forks while Amy and Leah set up for s’mores. They set out a collection of zip-lock bags containing marshmallows, graham crackers, and mini chocolate bars.
“I’ve always just used the classic Hershey bars,” I mention as I rejoin them at the picnic table. “Do the minis work for s’mores?”
“Two per works great, and the variety of chocolates, crispy rice, and peanuts add a little je ne sais quoi,” Amy grins, sparking memories of high school French class. “I like the Mr. Goodbar for the peanuts.”
“Special Dark is the superior chocolate,” Paige says, then pulls me toward the fire pit. “I need a man’s touch with this fire-building thing,” She says, blinking her eyes innocently and widening them like a kitten.
“Bullshit.” I laugh, and she hugs me, then squats and starts making a stack of kindling.
“I haven’t built a fire in years,” I say, kneeling beside her.
She makes half a ring of small sticks, like a small teepee, stuffs the middle with straw, and packs the remaining kindling around it. “Hand me that backpack.” I grab the bag she’s pointing at from the pile near the picnic table.
Paige unzips it, then looks to see if anyone is watching before reaching in and pulling out a can of lighter fluid.
She dumps the pungent liquid over the dry twigs and moss mound and hides the can back in her pack.
“You got a lighter?” she asks. When I shrug and shake my head, she grins as she pulls out a box of wooden matches.
“Good thing I didn’t plan on you knowing how to make a fire,” Paige says, scratching a match on one of the lava stones ringing the pit and then dropping the lit match on the pile of kindling soaked with flammable liquid.
FOOM
She smirks, pockets the matches, and gestures for me to help her place medium-sized chunks of wood around the small inferno she just made.
After some time and patience, a campfire roars inside the stone and metal fire ring.
“Make sure to extinguish this before you leave.” She rises, dusting off her hands.
“How do you like your marshmallows?” I ask her as we walk back to the picnic table. “I need to re-establish my manhood by charring a puffy cylinder of sugar.”
“Torch it.” Her eyes gleam in the dimming light of the sunset. “I’ll smash it in between. It’s the easiest way. Who has time for the golden-brown bullshit.”
“Hey, I love the light toasting,” Leah says, handing me a long skewer with a wooden handle. “Marshmallows are delicate and deserve to be treated with loving care.”
“I think marshmallows can handle the rough stuff. Don’t you think, Kurt?” Paige parries.
“Are we still talking about marshmallows or the two of you?” I quip and load up two skewers with the white balls from the stack on the table. “I’ll make up a few of each.”
I crouch near the firepit, feeling the heat of the fire as I jab one of the skewers directly into the flames while twirling the other stick a few inches away.
Bea and Ginny kneel in the dirt on either side of me and start experimenting with how to roast their confections.
I glance around and find Amy with a handful of unwrapped chocolate and marshmallows in one hand.
“I hate graham crackers.” She smirks, popping an unroasted marshmallow between her lips.
Laughing, I focus back on the fire, pull out the first skewer adorned with two flaming balls of sugar, and blow out the flames.
Paige leans over my back, holding a cracker stacked with miniature chocolate bars.
“Perfect, babe, just put them on this.” I shift to align the skewer with her arrangement of chocolate, and she presses another cracker on top.
The charred blobs crunch as I slide my stick back.
She holds out two more marshmallows. “For yours.”
I check the other skewer as she pushes fresh blobs over the gooey point. The other two have toasted to a light beige, and I glance at Leah, who’s watching the rotation. She nods. “That’s perfect. Gimme!” I repeat the process with her two lightly toasted confections and then focus on mine.
Ginny slightly burnt hers on accident while Bea carefully rotated hers until it matched the tone of her tawny complexion.
They’re busy piling up the melting sugar bombs on their choice of chocolate while I finish with my pair.
Amy rubs my shoulder as she watches. “Yeah, there you go, that’s not too burnt and not too raw.”
“The goldilocks of roasted marshmallows.”
I nod, then stand as she holds out a cracker with one of each of the minis lined down the middle.
She presses another cracker on top when I drop the skewer of lightly crisped cylinders onto the chocolate chunks.
After I slide out the skewer, she hands me the s’more and returns the skewer to the picnic table.
”We’re going to head out,” Leah says, holding her s’more in one hand and swinging her backpack over the other shoulder. “Don’t forget to clean up and dump things in the trash. Lock the rest of the food in the back of Amy’s SUV. Some wild animals would love to get sick from eating human food.”
Paige helps her wife strap her backpack around her middle while she chews the last bite of her dessert. I walk up, holding my s’more in one hand, to hug each of them in turn. The night is darkening, and the only light comes from the blazing fire.
“Be careful,” I say as everyone huddles around the pair. “We’ll be on our way after the park rangers leave.”
“We have our phones if something happens,” Paige says, waving it in her hand before sliding it into her back pocket. “Make sure yours are charged—you can top off from Amy’s rig. We’ll see you there.”
The pair head off to the trailhead by the boat ramp, running toward the frigid lake. They wave back, holding hands as they disappear behind bushes running along the trail’s side.
“Let’s clean up from dinner, girls,” Amy directs, then turns to me. “Get out the camp chairs from the back, please. We can enjoy the fire for a while as it dies down.”
Amy gathers the leftover food and packs it into the cooler as I assist Ginny and Bea in bagging the garbage.
They take the bags to the covered trash can by the rustic outhouse near the boat ramp.
Opening the back of the SUV, I grab four folding chairs from the back as Amy meets me, carrying the cooler.
“Having fun?” she asks with a grin.
“I love this. I can’t wait to incorporate camping into our schedules.”
“We will,” she says, plopping the cooler inside the back, then closing the door with a push of the button. “That’s why I decided to live up here. It’s a simpler life than the business of the valley.”
I transfer all the long, folding camp chairs under one arm and take Amy’s hand with the other.
We place the chairs around the lava stone fire ring when we’re back around the fire.
Amy sits to one side of me. Ginny and Bea sit on the opposite side when they return.
We start telling camping stories from childhood as time ticks toward midnight.