Another Vial of Sand

I'm back from a week's vacation. I've been catching up on reading what my blogging friends have been up to. Now it's time to turn my attention back to my own blog.

Well, sort of. I'm borrowing from a post I did elsewhere, but want to share it here with my own set of readers. It starts with a picture:



Photo by Kathryn
for more of Kathryn's photography visit -
http://www.pbase.com/katwilkens

Over at Pictures, Poetry, and Prose the above captioned picture appeared along with this suggested prompt:

It was the sand of ______ that she would remember because...

Mixing fact, fiction, what-if, and some creative license, I came up with this:


The Other Vial of Sand...

Fifteen clear boxes of labeled sand. They were relegated to the family room shelf for display, clumsily inscribed in her husband’s bland printing. In her separate bedroom, she had her treasures, it wasn’t the gems, the jewelry, or the rings, but it was the small vial containing the sand of southern Utah that she would remember and treasure because of him… a different him.

They had met at college – a friend of a friend. Soon they were more than that, much more. The school year was ending, and she had convinced him to join her for a month-long, transcontinental road trip. He loved to drive; she had the car and her mother’s financial backing. His mom didn’t like the idea, but hers did.

His mom had moral problems with the arrangement, and worried about unplanned pregnancies.

Her mom appreciated the security that the young man would provide her daughter on the cross-country trip that would culminate at her son’s home in northern Florida.

The trip started out great. It was the best trip she’d ever take despite the lack of glamour.

They drove to the Grand Canyon, camped there for four days, and made a three-day hike into the canyon. Together they saw Phantom Ranch located on the river’s edge where they ate over-priced five-dollar peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Hiking out, they ventured off the main trail to Ribbon Falls. They drank in the beauty, and they showered together in the falls.

From the North Rim, the plan was to drive north through Kanab to Utah’s Zion and Bryce canyons before heading east. But on the way, they took an unplanned side trip to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. It was nearly deserted, and they took advantage.

Salmon was her favorite color. This was what she would call her “salmon colored summer.”

The vial of soft, wind blown, pink coral sand that she kept in her jewelry box was like a magic lamp, providing a gateway to pleasant memories, to another time, to another place, and to another man.

Ahhh… that was the best part… a different man… the man of the salmon-colored summer, not the man of fifteen clear boxes of labeled sand.