I'm on vacation, I don't know where, somewhere mountainous, perhaps Yellowstone or Yosemite.
I wonder where the kids are, they should be with me, it's vacation after all, but the thought is only fleeting.
Walking along the winding highway through the mountains and I cross a ridge and there is below me a large shadow, cast by the mountain, and everything within it is covered with snow, there's a huge lake at the bottom of the valley and I can see that it's frozen...there's a road that winds along the bottom of the valley, through the snow, along the side of the lake, and I decide to walk along it in the shadow, it will be a welcome relief after the heat...
There's a warden giving out directions, people are in awe of this winter scene in the midst of a summer landscape, one person in a car is wondering if this new road along the lake will mess up his directions and the warden explains, a lady says "So that's what the brown spot on the mountain was" and she means the shadow cast by the mountain, the frozen valley, and when she mentions it I too have a brief memory of seeing the brown spot on the mountains...
I follow the road, towards the bottom I pass the mouth of a cave, it's shaped a like a {|, only on it's side, and the ceiling is low and I can see just beyond the ceiling the legs of some tourist sitting in an inner chamber. I haven't a flashlight but I decide to do a quick reconnaissance for the kids, see if it's worth coming back and exploring, and I duck into the first chamber and can see light at the other end, there's a stairwell with people coming down and as I approach I see her, and she gives me that smile, that morally superior "I know what you've been up to" smile, and she doesn't, doesn't at all, and it occurs to me that she must be on vacation as well, and as I pass her she stops me to ask if I want to go for coffee.
"No" I say, and exit the cave through the stairs on the other end.
When I'm out of the cave I'm in sunlight again, a busy street in some sort of mountain resort town filled with kitsch souvenir shops and I wonder if I shouldn't have went for coffee.