Rest Stop
I wrote this short story in the mid 1980s.  It was my first commercial sale, and I still think it's a decent little story.
The father looked out over the grounds of the rest area.  He was fond of this place.  It was a familiar stop for the family on its annual vacation.  Home was not far behind them, but this was the last quality resting place before they neared their destination some distance away. He leaned comfortably against a boulder which seemed as thought it was shaped exactly to fit the contours of his back.  They had stopped at the base of a dry, squat mountain for some shade while they ate, but now he wanted to rest in the sun for a while. His wife was behind him, cleaning up the remains of their picnic lunch, humming quietly to herself.  Their two children played in the sand that blanketed the land for miles.  Their vehicle was parked nearby, waiting quietly.  Soon it would be time to stow their gear inside and the next leg of their journey would begin. His eyes glowed as he watched the children.  They were drawing another of their stick figures in the sand.  They called complicated instructions to each other.  This one might be their best yet, a child's engineering miracle.  These games of theirs.  So complicated.  But they were excited about the vacation, and it was better for them to use up their energy here, in open spaces, than while the parents were trying to drive. They reminded him of himself as a youth.  Oh, he had played simpler games, but the idea was the same.  Entertainment.  Experimentation with the physical world in which they lived.  Their antics took him back to an earlier day, as his eyes lowered and he drifted into a gentle sleep... Eventually his wife signaled that it was time to go.  He rose up, stretching and yawning.  He hefted their supplies in his arms and loaded them securely away, commenting on how good the sunshine had felt.  Then he and his wife stood together and watched the children.  They were almost finished, no need to take them away before the drawing was complete. The kids put the finishing touches on their project, a dramatic, bird-shaped figure that even time would find difficult to remove from the sand.  Sensing that playtime was over, they ran, giggling, to their parents' sides.  All four admired the work from afar.  The parents hugged their children, inwardly hoping, as parents do, that it was the beginning of some latent artistic abilities. The children asked, Can we stop and see it on our way home? The father smiled and nodded.  As if he could deny them that small pleasure. Now, however, the time had come to resume their travels and leave the rest area.  There was nothing important about the place, a brief interlude on their trip, but their familiarity with this quiet place comforted and reassured them.  It made them more of a family, if such a thing were even possible. The family climbed into its starship and blasted into the heavens. The rest stop was the planet Earth, specifically Peru's Nazca Plain. The stick drawings were miles long, by human standards.  Man would wonder for centuries about the origin of these mysterious figures. Children's games during a long, intergalactic vacation. Author's Note:  In a desert region near Nazca, Peru, a series of markings were constructed sometime between 400 BC and 900 AD.  When viewed from the air, several of these sets of markings form the outlines of animals.  Some individuals believe that alien visitors may have been responsible Home Personal Links Image Galleries Journeys The Good Old Days The Movie Quotes Project Fiction Rules of the Road