Shimmer of Life and Love by the Lake’s Edge

When we finally reach the vacation cabin by the lake--looking like nine dusty characters from a Steinbeck novel, complete with our dusty dog, Lucky--it is late in the day and I am walking funny from sitting on a wad of vacation cash for five hours, which has deadened many of my walking muscles. Limping, already. Like a fullback in the fourth quarter.

“OK, everybody grab a suitcase,” I say.

And the kids look at me like I just ordered them to dig a well.

Work? You can see it in their eyes. Us? We’re kids, for crying out loud. Just look at us. Not a muscle among us.

“Yeah, you,” I say.

And they groan and whimper as they drag their bags into the cabin. Thirty feet. Forty feet. Down stairs. Up stairs. It’s not easy, being a kid today. Sometimes, you have to carry stuff.

“Dad, can you help me?” asks the little girl.

“You’re Hercules,” I say. “You can do it.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” I say. “You’re Hercules.”

“Jeeesh,” she says, a French expression she picked up from her mother.

Family vacations are not for wimps. First, there was the car trip itself, which went rather well, except for a little while when the other family on the trip thought we were hopelessly lost. We circled and circled in cars packed tight with vacation junk. Sardines travel more comfortably. Canned and oiled.

Then there were the occasional, random sightseeing stops, something a father has no control over. A dad spots something fascinating, he just has to share it with others.

“Dad, what are we doing?” one of the kids asks.

“This,” I say, “is the exact spot where James Dean died.”

“Who?”

“James somebody,” says the little girl.

“Who?”

“James Bond,” says the boy.

We stand staring at the monument to James Dean. We’re in California’s midsection, dry and hot as the devil’s ashtray. One of the letters in Dean’s name is missing from the memorial. Jame Dean, it reads. Rebel without an “s.”

“Who’s Jame Dean?” the boy asks.

“It’s supposed to be James,” I explain.

“Who?” asks the little girl.

“A famous actor,” says my older daughter.

“Dead,” adds the boy.

There’s a long pause as they absorb it all. Cars zoom by on Route 46, the road that claimed Dean. Not much wider than a strip of celluloid.

“The history of American movies changed right here,” I say. “Right where you’re standing.”

“Wow,” says the little girl.

“Yeah wow,” says her mom.

So we pile back into the cars, our hearty tribe of summer travelers, sitting shoulder to shoulder, nerve ending to nerve ending, till we reach this beautiful lake, winking at us in the August sun.

“This is a nice lake,” says the little girl.

“OK, everybody grab a suitcase,” I say.

Which brings us back to our little cabin, and the unloading of the luggage. A ceremony, really. One of the early stages of the car-trip decathlon.

“There’s a spider on my bed,” my older daughter yells.

“I think there’s a cricket in the kitchen,” the boys says. “A live cricket.”

“Hey, we’re in the right place,” I say.

Yep, couldn’t be more right, this little place on the edge of a lake. Couple of barbecues on the wood deck. Twelve-pack in the fridge. Cricket in the kitchen. A live one. Couldn’t be better.

“Dad, we’re walking down to the lake,” the boy says, and he and a buddy head for the water.

The lake. Few words resonate so much. Few things represent idle time and summer as well. The lake. Lord, I love this lake.

“Here’s to our vacation,” says my friend Chris, whose family is vacationing with us.

“We should see about a boat,” I say.

So we head to the marina, where they rent boats for about a hundred bucks a minute, which isn’t bad if you’ve ever owned a boat. Even at a hundred bucks a minute, renting is far cheaper than actually owning one.

“That doesn’t include gas,” the marina guy explains.

“Of course not,” I say.

Here at Lake Nacimiento, they have a good selection of boats to choose from. Sleek ski boats. Kayaks. Pontoon boats too, the flat-decked party barges your Uncle Bob used to own.

I’m strangely attracted to these pontoon boats, with their trailer-park aluminum awnings and roomy, cushioned seating. They are the gangly ugly ducklings of the boating world, the kind of boat Picasso would’ve designed.

“I have one available tomorrow,” the marina guy says.

“We’ll take it,” I say.

In the evening, we head over to the California Mid-State Fair, which is in its final day. Nothing to sneeze at, this fair, except, of course, for the various animal aromas. Sheryl Crow was performing here earlier in the week, as were Alicia Keyes and Train. They are gone. Instead, we have monster truck rallies and some singer named Steve Holy.

“Dad, I’m not going to watch monster trucks,” my older daughter says. “Seriously.”

“Your mom really wants to go,” I explain.

“Mom would never go to that,” she says.

“She wouldn’t?”

“Of course not,” says my daughter.

So instead we see Steve Holy, a country singer of some promise who puts on a fine show before a few hundred folks, all of whom seem to know who he is.

“Just because my name is Holy doesn’t mean I’m here to preach to you,” he jests.

“This guy’s pretty funny,” I whisper to my wife.

“Can we go now?” someone says a little too loud.

“After the next song,” I say.

Back home, we sit around the cabin looking at each other. Mercifully, the TV doesn’t work. There’s a deck of cards. An old Monopoly game. A stack of Reader’s Digests. In the kitchen, the cricket chirps.

“This baby keeps kicking,” says my wife, profoundly pregnant atop the couch.

“You OK?”

“All the driving around, all the activity,” she says, rubbing her tummy like a crystal ball. “This baby doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Oh baby,” coos the little girl.

Between card games, the other kids stop by the couch, one by one, to say hello. The boy gently rubs his mom’s pregnant tummy.

“Noogie-noogie-noogie,” he says, gently rubbing his mother’s belly with his knuckles. “Baby’s first noogie.”

“Jeeesh,” says his mom.

For a few minutes, we make womb jokes. Go to your womb. Womb for rent. Womb with a view.

“It’s a comfortable womb,” I say. “A little dark.”

“The Viper Womb,” says my buddy Chris.

Lord, I love this lake.

Next week: A run-in with the ranger.

Chris Erskine’s column is published Wednesdays. He can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.