Oh, we’ve seen the RRRRRUUUUUMMMMMBBBBLLLLLEE before, may times, but apparently Mark knows his Rumbles, and this is not an earthquake variety Rumble… and either Mark is choosing to not look at Abbey which he is admonishing her, or she has moved, in mid-sentence, from Mark’s port to Mark’s starboard side…

Dollars to donuts, Cal is in the air by now… he has his investment to protect, and since he has every passenger execute a lengthy waiver of liability, he is certainly held harmless against any stupid acts that a client might engage in…

But really, folks, here we go again… Man (and woman) against Nature.  We know that she can be a cruel mistress, a bitch even, but this got old two stories ago.

In the old days (and yes I am old enough to know about them…) Mark never went on assignment without a camera- I mean, how are you going to entice readers with mere words?  No matter how eloquently you might describe a world-record-breaking ant hill, a picture is going to bring it all home…  It suddenly occurred to to me that Mark has been (I think) camera-less in all the Allen inspired stories…

But sure as shootin’, this is the mother of all ant hills…  compared to what one typically sees in Nature…

So Maybe these aren’t your garden-variety Red Imported Fire Ants…  Maybe they are a new strain, one that will threaten the world if they ever got off the island…  OK, I know… I’m just trying to manufacture a little tension here.

Just like the most interesting thing to a dog is what’s on the other side of a closed door, we are constantly told to wait and wonder what’s in the next panel, the one that will appear the following day.  It’s a device, not an an especially clever one, that will keep a story moving, and readers coming back, I suppose…  But what is it that Abbey is seeing?  Did Cal set himself on fire along with his chopper?  Is there a tribe of native islanders looking for their next meal? (OK, I have no knowledge that the Hawaiian people, of any sort, were cannibals…)

But if it’s as big and obvious as Abbey is making out (again, without the aid of her necessary, pre-scription eye-glasses) then why does she even need to point out the “menace?”

Thanks for the comment that what we have experienced since Cherry had the good sense to not get in the Helicopter with Mark and Cal has taken maybe a couple of hours in real time, but has stretched out 40 days.  So, no, boys and girls, you aren’t just imagining the “James Allen Effect,” you are, in fact, living it.

And for what it’s worth, screw the ants…  I mean, really?

Once again we are led into a situation on a wild hare (or is it hair??)  Bats?  Let’s witness some human trafficking, get shot at and go get lost in a cave system… RIFA’s?  Let’s leave poolside and the resort with the 600 thread-count sheets, charter a Helicopter, climb to the top of something, get charged by a Wild Boar, climb up a dead tree and then fall 100 feet into 12 inches of water, head first, appear unscathed and move on…  to what end? I ask… To what end?  <<COUGH>> indeed…

Mark, in panel two, is going for humor again, an indefatigable mixture of the dry and ironic… 2 out of 5 Elrods for that…… mostly for effort.

Than you Reader Richard…  you noticed that I did not post on 10/25…

But I digress . . . So either our intrepid blogger missed reviewing a day’s installment – a rip in the Trail universe’s space-time continuum, as it were – or I have become entirely too obsessed with the twists and turns of this nightmare/fantasy such that my subconscious has started making up more bizarro-world stuff in order to see if it just might come true, just as I have done with the presidential election.

Funny how this happens, I guess… I read the Trail, I start the post, and if nothing comes, I move onto the day’s news, bleary and depressing as it is these days.  Then I look at the time, realize that I need to go take my turn at the wheel, and off I go.  Normally I remember this and make up for it the next day with a two-fer, but not this time.

So yes, my comments this morning must have seemed a bit off, since I had not yet posted the installment featuring the death (or at least a C-5 fracture of the spinal column) of our in-over-her-head USDA agent…

…and what’s with the Buster Brown Shoes, Mark??

As Mark exclaims to no one in particular, Abbey has found another random “ridge” to fall down/into…  And is Mark purposely allowing himself to slide into the same ridge?  Or is it simply another stroke of bad luck?  The kind that befalls people that don’t know when it’s best chill out by he pool and actually take a vacation.  But of course where’s the adventure in that?  And since our scribe has no skills other than drawing, (remember this is what he claims to like best about his current job,) we’ll continue to be subjected to awkward and incomprehensible story arcs…

So as Gravity takes a hold of the Trail, maybe tomorrow we’ll find out if Abbey’s headlong plunge into a shallow creek bed has rendered her, well, dead…  We can  only hope for the real Abbey Powell (@realabbeypowell) that she has been released from this purgatory…

Seriously?

A new hole in which to fall?  Can’t be the ravine… that was a way’s  back, I think…  Maybe the real Abbey (@realabbeypowell) will get her wish- to be written out of the strip.

Well at least the tree was dead… that would explain how the boar managed to take it out with a single shot.  And Boar don’t climb tree… that much also make sense… Ugh, me Tarzan, or what??

And it’s another convenient excuse to waste an entire day on a single panel shot…

I love the comments about what must be happening back at the resort…  Cherry finally satisfied after learning what the term “full service” actually means…

… but that’s sure what it looks like in the first panel… with the boar’s two hind legs in unison… and what’s with the back?  Looks like it’s exploding/coming apart and something is emerging.  yuk.  And what are you thinking Mark?  That the Boar only had it out for the tree?

But what’s up with this tree?  Really?  Must have been compromised to begin with otherwise a single Boar strike couldn’t possible bring it down… but at least there are people there, so it’s free to make a noise…

And enough already with the advice!  Mark, keep it to yourself!  Depending on whether Abbey is on the windward or leeward side of the falling tree, she might just NOT want to “Hang on…”  Again, “Everyone into the cave!” comes to mind.  And Abbey, why REMARK when it’s time to REACT!?

Another spellbinder!  I can hardly stand it!!

How about threatened?  Maybe there’s a den of little Boar-lets nearby.  Protecting territory is as old as time.  This has to be the slowest wild boar on record though… based on the videos posted, Mark would have been gored in the knee before he could say “What th—”

But how does a shoulder bag, securely around Abbey’s neck and shoulder, suddenly fall to the ground??