A Spring Hike around Round Valley Reservoir

“Can we go walk by the ocean? I like the ocean. I wish I had an ocean like this to ‘plash in.” —Henry, on walking along the rocky beach of Round Valley Reservoir

“Have you read The Ocean at the End of the Lane [by Neil Gaiman]? Henry keeps reminding me of it, because it's about a young boy who thinks a small lake is an ocean.” —Daddy to Uncle Jon, on watching Henry walk with me along the reservoir beach

{Words to Henry after a trip to Round Valley Reservoir}

We’re eating peanut butter and jellies in the grass near the boat launch when Uncle Jon and Denise arrive. You keep dripping jelly on your blue jeans, and I try furiously to keep up with the water from your bottle, wiping each spot clean as I can with my bare fingers. (Daddy says he forgot napkins.) In between bites, you alternate watching the trucks steer boats toward the launch and reassuring Uncle Jon that there's so much water down here. Once we are fully fueled, Daddy grabs his boots and the backpack for a hike along the Water Trail.

You wrap your tiny hand around my index finger, and together we cross the impoundment dike, to you, the “bridge,” at your pace, which includes Daddy pausing to show us the beach at the right, where he and Uncle Dave used to swim when they were kids, and you wondering out loud about Uncle Dave bringing the jet skis here. But the water is mostly still, with watercraft limited to kayaks and slow-speed fishing boats—peaceful, busy, but quiet. The water, I notice, glancing in the direction of the fish and wildlife area at the left, is a beautifully and surprisingly transparent blue. I can see the rocks purposefully, aesthetically tucked just beneath the surface.

The Water Trail, too, is busy but quiet. Pairs of hikers, families, runners, two people relaxing in travel hammocks, a man, and his dog swimming in the reservoir. And of course, the Giants. The Giants who live at the reservoir, sleeping, buried deep in caves in the woods during the day, thumping and bumping and fee-fi-fo-fum-ing at night. “Who knocked down those trees?” You ask later from your perch on Daddy's back, looking down upon an enormous pile of brush, logs, trunks, limbs of trees. “There must be Giants here,” Daddy says. “Fee-fi-fo-fum,” I echo in my deepest baritone as we keep walking, and you giggle as you and Daddy pass under another “bridge,” a low-hanging tree branch in our path. “That was funny,” you say.

But the water. Oh, the water. Oh, how you are your momma’s boy. “Can we go walk by the ocean?” You wonder at first simply in wonder, and then in definite inquiry, upon hearing Denise say that we might. “Of course.” We swing you down so you can climb over beds of stone, and you and I find a nice, plump rock, where we sit and take a drink. Further down the shore, Daddy picks up a pebble, a flat one, and skips it—flick, one, two, three, sink. And you follow suit, making pebble after pebble go ‘plash in the reservoir. Toss, plop. Toss, plop.

“Kaplunk!” You say, turning around, grinning.

“Look at this! Are you going to see this one go boom in the water, mommy?” “I see it, buddy”; I see you: little red hat hiding your eyes in your search for the perfect stone, white tee miraculously yet white post-peanut-butter-and-jelly, boots but millimeters from soaked; you are the happiest boy in the world. To simply toss pebbles into water.

“Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk . . . Boom! . . . ‘Plash.”

My shoulders are heating up with the sun, my bottom cooling off with moisture from the sand and rock, in the warm breeze, in the brilliant daylight, and I am the happiest momma in the world. To simply watch you toss pebbles into water.