Such emoting!  Such grand gesturing!  Mark’s hand locked in a palsy, Cherry going all “big eyes” on us.

The laconic Sheriff, who no doubt has seen it all, is barely moved by any of the outcomes he is describing…  But Mark and Cherry are positively aghast!  Not much happens in their little corner of the world, except for the odd poacher that thinks he can make a few bucks nabbing pelts off the preserve…  Now there is THE GREAT (non-verbal) WILHELM, who is probably on some behavioral/ physiological/ psychological spectrum, so they figured they’d dress him up and throw him out in front of the audience… Clowns are funny, right?  So anything he does, even if it’s weird and creepy will draw laughter… at least that was the bit that seems to have worked for decades!!

References to Clown Cars and Bar Cars on the Circus Train…  A bit off the “Mark.”

Clown cars are little vehicles that roll out and produce an unexpected number of riders…  or one of the little cars you might see a shriner motoring as part of a parade…

For Circus Trains, I highly suggest reading Water for Elephants if you are interested in a very graphic (and I assume accurate) depiction of Life in the Circus and on the Circus train as it travels from town to town…  It was not a glamorous life, to say the least, rather it was one filled with hardship and fear.  Of course the time of the book was during prohibition, so the introduction of alcohol, of any kind, brought with it additional anxiety…  and illness as the roustabouts were falling prey to the effects of drinking “wood alcohol” containing methanol…

Clearly Cherry and Mark are not getting the joke, as they are a largely humorless pair…  so let’s move it along here, as this scene is getting uncomfortable…

And why is everything named after this fellow Cutter?  Cutter’s Bluff (Home to Rex the Grizzly) and now Cutter’s Curve? I assume it’s a guy, since that would be in line with the history of naming things…

Miles?  Really?  How about “All over the place?”  That would be a little more believable and have the same comic effect…  But just be glad that it wasn’t an oil tanker train… Now that would have resulted in “miles” of impact to the environment!

Mark Trail throughout the years has remained pretty apolitical, but it’s always leaned toward conservation.  This doesn’t make Mark a left-leaning eco-zealot, and if you recall, he was willing to engage with Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina) over the whole Rhino-Horn-Trafficking issue…

…And with Mark’s adequate display of current events knowledge and careful recitation of the facts, we are left to wonder whether a train line actually runs through Lost Forest…  and as readers we were correct in piecing the puzzle together…  no head-fakes here!

But an accident?  I think not!  An act of terror more like, unleashed by Dirty Dyer, hoping that the larger and more aggressive members of the animal troop would find and tear into the Trails!!

What’s a ‘Weekend?’

When you don’t really work, the days all sort of mush together…

And still no acknowledgement, Mark, that you were being a Class-A Butthead… So sure of yourself that everyone around you couldn’t be seeing the things they were seeing…

And would a ‘Farewell Tour’ involve setting all the animals free?  This still doesn’t make a lick of sense…