How I finally fell in love with camping: Sleeping in the silence and safety of my car.

Summit lake campground at sunrise.

My mother took us camping in Yosemite National Park every summer when I was a kid.

I realize now that what she did was pretty wonderful. But at the time, I kinda hated it.

Especially the long drive to the park through the hot and boring San Joaquin Valley in my mother’s tiny Honda Civic station wagon, which was so crammed with our equipment and food that my sister and I had to take turns sitting. 

Yep, when the passenger seat was taken, the only other place to shove a small human was in the stifling hot few inches of space on top of the pile of tents and sleeping bags. I can still remember lying there, staring at the roof of the car and praying for the wheels to slow because it meant we were stopping for popsicles again. 

Which was a brilliant tactic by our mother to keep us from completely collapsing into tantrums of despair — since she never let us eat sugar at home, she knew that we would patiently endure nearly anything if it had the promise of frozen sugar water at the end, even hours stuck in a hot car with nothing to do but stare at the fields of crops and play word games. (Since this was the time before you could carry constant distraction everywhere, the only entertainment in our car was what we made ourselves.)

And even when we got to the campground, our time in the car was far from over. Because these were also the days before reservations, my mother’s plan for snagging us a campsite was usually to arrive in the middle of the night, then sleep in in our car while wait for people to leave at first light.

At least the car was cooler and had more room inside when my mother was out prowling for the best site — she always wanted one next to the meadow for the best birding — but I was always too anxious to really sleep, and all I wanted to do at that point was get out of the car.

So many decades later while camping at another national park this year, I was shocked to find myself not only choosing to crawl back into my car to sleep, but actually kinda loving it.

It was on my first night camping at Lassen Volcanic National Park this summer, when I was unable to fall asleep in my tent because my body was aching and the campers next-door would not stop talking, and in desperation I finally I dragged all my sleeping gear into my car.

That was cool.

Watching the sunset from inside my car.

Because my bedding became more comfortable, it was quiet, and I felt more safe in there. Best of all,  I could see the stars, including one streaking across the sky.

Sleeping with a view of the night sky reminded me of the best moments on family road trips, my parents at the wheel, me falling asleep with the trees flying by. 

And one of the things I dislike the most about sleeping in a tent, other than feeling like a human burrito just lying there for animals of all sizes to nibble on, is that you can’t see the stars.

But in the car I had a wonderful view, and though the moon did get too bright — I remember waking up to a bright light shining in my face and being thoroughly confused — so I will definitely need to get window shades for the next time.

Because yes, I think there will be a next time. I liked having all my stuff around me, already packed and ready to drive away with me at any moment. And it felt like sleeping in my own bed almost, because it had years of my own breath and smells and memories all around me. Not like an unfamiliar hotel room, where I never get good sleep the first night, no matter how tired I am.

And I really needed the good sleep in got in my car, because I would not only be climbing Lassen Peak, but fixing my broken sunglasses at the top!

Movies I saw in August: The End of Oak Street, Tony, The Dog Stars

All of the movies I saw in the theater in August were about endings: The first an end to life on Earth as we know it; the second an end of teen-age freedom as the wave of adulthood threatens to drown all hope; and the third an end of wishing for something that might be just beyond reach instead of embracing what you can touch right now.

The End of Oak Street (In the theater, 8/15/2026) Grade: B.

This movie felt like Jurassic Park blended with Stranger Things, a mix that turned two great originals into one pretty OK smoothie.

Because it was a dinosaur movie with too little time spent with the prehistoric creatures and too much on the all-too-typical dysfunctions of a typical suburban family on a typical street in America, though I did enjoy watching Ewan MacGregor playing a middle-aged dad forced to deliver pizzas to pay the bills.

And while I also appreciated watching his teen daughter slipping away to listen to Steve Winwood on a cassette tape in the family car, I couldn’t help feeling that the scene’s purpose was only to have that “analog” technology used so effectively and naturally in Stranger Things. (Cue the kids on bikes!)

Plus, who the heck turns to Steve Winwood when they need to release angst? I sure didn't when I was that teenage girl, because no one in my house ever purchased any Steve Winwood music.

Tony (In theater 8/23/2026) Grade: A.

I loved Anthony Bourdain, and I loved this movie. The perfect portrait of an icon in the making, and a perfect portrayal of teen-age arrogance being sliced and diced by the knives of adulthood that eventually cut us all.

Dominic Sessa was wonderful as the loutish-but-lovable Bourdain, and Antonio Banderas was surprisingly sublime as the boss we all need when we’re young — the one we don’t even realize is squeezing out the best of us while stamping out the worst.

And while its claustrophobic kitchen scenes did not make me miss my time in food service, which also gave me arms full of burn scars from slinging pizzas, they did bring back fond memories of my restaurant mentor, a small but mighty woman named Betty. 

I never had to sleep on her hammock, but I was an orphan she took under her wing, giving me extra bonuses at Christmas so I could pay my phone bill when she demanded I keep my landline.

And while I had to convince her that a girl could run the ovens — and not just on a sleepy Wednesday afternoon, but on the super busy Friday and Saturday nights — the respect and trust I eventually earned from her still means the world to me.

This movie reminds us that often the best lessons in life are learned by being thrown into deep water and told to swim, and that the best people we meet are the ones willing to throw a bucket of cold water on us, both on our face and our fantasies, when we need it the most. 

The Dog Stars (In theater 8/29/2026) Grade: B-/C+.

There was a lot to like about this movie. As Joey from “Friends” declares when eating Rachel's mistake trifle, I declare: Josh Brolin? Good. Guy Pearce and Margaret Qualley? Good. Quiet moments of people surviving the collapse of civilization under expansive skies? Very good.

But like that mistake trifle, which was created from two recipe pages getting stuck together, this movie turned into a Frankenstein’s monster: a bunch of random parts sewn together that never quite meshed. Especially the video-game like scene that melted The Last of the Mohicans, Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, and the even more weird and unsettling David Lynch take on Texas Chain Saw Massacre. 

I’m not sure if director Ridley Scott was encouraged to add all the random chaos to keep the interest of younger viewers, or if all the weirdness was in the novel the film was based upon, but I would have much preferred a much quieter exploration of a man finally being able to leave the guilt of his wife's death behind and accept his current surroundings.

So instead, I recommend watching my favorite Ridley Scott movie, which just happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time, Thelma and Louise.

Movies I saw in July: Obsession, The Odyssey