Jimmy and his Wife

I noticed their tent first. In a campground populated with brightly colored nylon, the pale canvas against the brilliant green hillside proclaimed it to be the home of camping purists. The ends of the awning stretched between guylines flapped in the light breeze as the poles stood sturdy and straight. I could imagine it being used by a surveyor or a general on the march, at home on a sand dune or in a forest.

By the time we strolled past, it was late afternoon. A man and a woman sat in padded camp chairs, their feet resting on plastic milk crates, books in their hands. He held a Costco size container of mixed nuts, his Air Force baseball cap shielding his eyes. She was barefoot, her toes stretched towards the sea while the rest of her was bundled under a long sleeved shirt, scarf, and hat.

Unlike other campsites, theirs was practically barren with only a lonely can of Dinty Moore stew on the otherwise empty table and a knotted plastic bag with colored pencils and a coloring book indicating they would be doing more than watching the sun set over the Pacific.

"We love your tent!" Tara shouted to them.

They looked up from their respective books, setting them aside. "Would you like to check it out? Feel free," they invited with the Midwestern hospitality their license plate promised.

I wandered up the slight incline and peeked into the cozy enclosure. Two cots flanked the door, a table in the middle holding a lantern and more books while above it, a loop of fabric secured a handful of colorful scarves.

I wandered back to where they sat, proclaiming my admiration for their simple set up. They grinned and started to tell us their story.

Jimmy and his wife - who was never introduced but I like to think of as Claire - are in their mid-80s. When we met them, they were on the third week of a six week camping trip and had been watching the sun set over the Pacific from their perch for nearly a week. They had traveled from Indiana, spending weeks camping in the snow and cold before finally hitting the coast.

Tech savvy, they pulled up pictures on their iPhones and showed us grandchildren and the newest member of the family: their first great-grandchild. They laughed at how Jimmy, once a long distance truck driver, could never stay in one spot long and how his wife, once a stay at home mom who had given birth to their first child while he was playing basketball across Europe for the Air Force, had started joining him after the kids left home.

They'd been married for fifty-seven years. He teased it was due in part to her being deaf for twenty-four of those years. "Cochlear implant!" she said with a grin and tapped the tube partially hidden by her cap.

"I can't tell her her butt looks big anymore without getting a black eye," Jimmy said with a wink and a smile towards his petite wife.

They told us of their plans - Bryce Canyon, Colorado, Florida, Alaska. He told me of the motorcycle accident four years ago when he thought he was going to lose her again - the first time being when she battled breast cancer.

I watched the two of them together and wondered what it must be like to know someone for such a long time, to know their every secret, every strength, every weakness. They laughed and teased each other like children. Her eyes rolling while he giggled over what he thought was a particularly witty remark. Logically, I know there must have been fights and loneliness when he was gone for months. Logically, I know they may have even hated each other sometimes. But, something in the sparkle of his eyes and the lines around her mouth tells me that they spent more time laughing than fighting.

We said goodbye and walked back to our campsite after nearly an hour. As we sat down to play cards while the chile verde simmered in a Dutch oven. My mind kept drifting back to Jimmy and his wife who are spending their 80s sleeping on cots in a canvas tent and traveling down windy roads, their adventures far from over.