One night in 1954, a twelve-year-old boy named Janie’s father announces that he has planned for their family to take a vacation to Colorado to spend two weeks in the mountains. Janie and his sister, Carolyn, who is in the second grade, are excited, but their mother expresses annoyance at the sudden decision, wanting to stay home.  Nevertheless, the family sets off to drive to Colorado from Oklahoma City. It is a quiet drive, and the children sleep often. When they arrive at their hotel, however, the children and their mother complain that the room is small and dirty. In the coming days, Janie’s father goes fishing as the children explore small mountains. Their mother, having to clean and gut all the fish that her husband catches, complains that this is not a vacation for her. Eventually, Janie, too, complains that he wants to go home, but he meets a waitress at a saloon who catches his eye, a nineteen-year-old whom he tells he is fifteen. On the night before the family returns home, Janie thinks to himself that someday he will have a wife and family and not let anything ruin him, but he wakes to his mother complaining to his father, saying that he won’t let her sleep.