Summary

The Million-Year Picnic – Tim, Michael, Robert, their mother, and their father go from Minnesota to Mars under the guise of a fishing trip vacation in the late 1990s. They pass the magnificent ruins of ancient Martian civilizations as they float down a river. Suddenly, the rocket the family has taken to Mars explodes by their father’s doing so they can’t be tracked. The family explores several abandoned Martian cities, finding one in which they will now live given the devastation nuclear war as brought to Earth. It is expected that someday, other families will arrive in government-issued escape rockets, though most will probably head to the moon. At least their old neighbor Bert Edwards, his wife, and several daughters are only a day or two behind. The father symbolically and literally burns old papers, essays, and government...