Packing the Car for Our Western Camping Trip

What we will remember—we tried to take the dog, packed around him, making a cozy spot at the back of the Subaru, blocking out the sun, resisting the obvious— he was too old, he would not make it. And when he died in Minnesota, we smelled and smelled his paws, arthritic and untouchable these last many years, took those marvelous paws up into our faces. They smelled of dark clay and sweet flower bloom decay.