I have to laugh.  Mark offers no hint of relief in finding Doc upright and breathing!  Just the continued scowl and a “Where’s JJ?”

That’s right, Doc!  The Map!!  I see that you managed to keep you hat, though.  Thank goodness for that!!

Wandering in the desert never looked like this before…

Mark, who are you talking to?  Are you looking for a witness to your thoughts? But then soft!  Who goes there?  In the distance(?)  With the tell-tale hat and gate?  And voice?  It’s Doc, of course… Mark looks pissed!  Really!  No inheritance today, bucko!

With Leola playing the part of Raggedy Ann and Mark in Hero mode, we see them reaching the high ground that Mark was calling for the other day…

…and as Mark’s hair snaps back into place for panel three, last we saw Doc & JJ, they were at least 5 lengths ahead of Mark & Leola…

Mark, MARK, Cough, COUGH…  Ripping!  And not a hair out of place!

But what is keeping the log from spinning?  Not the first time that physics be damned in the Trailverse!

Oh my!  Such excitement!

Had to pick up from where we left off yesterday…

Now that Mark is (once again) in saviour mode, and of course it’s the damsel that needs saving, we can rest assured that everyone will come out the other end OK…  Death visits the Trailverse infrequently (once, as I recall…) so we can really breathe easily now.  Never mind the fact that we will spend the next few days escaping this situation…

From one manufactured ‘crisis’ to the next, we find our crew (at least one of them) neck deep in raging floodwaters…

What better time to take stock of Loela’s impressively thick mane.  Hair in the Trailverse is impressively impervious to any and all assaults…  from wind and water all the way to lava…

I guess this is why they refer to these events as “flash floods…”

…in the blink of an eye, a wall of water is crashing down on the troops…

If the water is arriving/moving that fast, I doubt one could out-run it… and of course we will have to wait ’til Monday to see whether they were swept away (or not!)  Better save the MAP!

I honestly don’t remember, and don’t care enough to look at yesterday’s strip.

Last I checked, thunder doesn’t hurt anything…

If anything, they should be preparing to capture the rain in some way so that they don’t perish… but, hey, what do I know?  That said, we are on Trailtime, where it takes a month’s worth of installments to move the clock ahead ten minutes…

Another day, another Nature Lesson…

Mark almost looks annoyed…  OK, he is annoyed.  Annoyed that he is on this walk-about.  Annoyed that he’s not the one calling out all the “natural elements.”  Crabby, crabby, crabby.  C’mon, Mark… it’s not ALWAYS all about YOU!

Another day, another two steps…

Wandering through the desert, seemingly impervious to the elements, following the map religiously, our intrepid band soldiers on…

We are treated to more wildlife.  Today we see some kind of Dragon/Monitor Lizard.  Snaking a forked tongue, checking for a mate, (hint, it’s hiding in the cacti below…) it’s evidence that life can survive here, but only if you know how…

…as Mark foments discord in the ranks…

Doc takes the bait… hook, line, and sinker…

What exactly tipped you off, Mark?  And remember it was Leola that introduced you all to him…  And she knew why you were coming to visit, so why should she be held without reproach?  You could both be getting set up for a bad turn…

Oh my… tensions are running high in the Desert Southwest…

Perhaps it’s because Doc was the only smart one to bring and wear a hat… keeping the sun’s rays off’n his bald pate…

I don’t know how much more of this riveting tête-à-tête I can take…

Hopelessness has no place in the Trailverse!

And taking stock of the situation… the fact that Mark doesn’t grow facial hair.  Am I the only one that wonders about that?  And the fact that he’s been wearing that same damn pink shirt for over a year now?  Even the cactus behind JJ is expressing itself…

Well…  guess who’s up!!  It’s Ol’ Doc Davis… Father of Cherry Davis Trail, Mark’s Meal Ticket.

His enthusiasm knows no bounds!  But it’s clear that this is wearing on the rest of them…

What’s awesome about this trip is that the participants seem to have no need for food or water!  They just keep hiking along…  Mark did have a small canteen, but he lost that in his fall as he stumbled (literally) onto Skull Mountain…

Again, best to not get your hopes up, Old Man…  the chances of us finding this “Vanishing Mine,” let alone making it out of the desert, are slim indeed!

The only excitement I recall is… well, I can’t.

On the nature front, we have a stand-off over what?  Territory?  a Meal?

Well, color me surprised…  I guess it’s a thing…

If’n I wanted a history lesson, I’da picked up a book…  seriously.

Blah blah blah

Said the guy whose business it is to outfit and guide people looking for gold…

Cactus?  Sagebrush?  A Tumbling Tumbleweed??

Yup… that ol’ excitement… the same way I feel every morning when I get to read and comment on yet another ripping installment of the Trail-verse…  Where we learn more here by accident than elsewhere by design.

I will say it again…  those are some big-ass tents given their relatively small packs with unpadded straps…  No clothes but what they have on, I am guessing, and what they are doing for cooking and food one can only guess.

Well, campers, with Skull Mountain checked off, and Doc’s sanity and memory validated, we are on our way again!

It’s difficult to know who is doing the talking in the long shots, but based on the last few days I’d have to say it’s Mark in the bubble above…

With JJ’s frown turned upside-down, I guess Mark feels like it’s his job to urge caution and set expectations…

…and it would seem that Leola is getting in on the discussion, trying to overcome Mark’s negativity…

Mark, really? Who asked you?  You spend the days scowling and not saying a word, only to fall flat and put the crew on the right path… Now you are a regular Doubting Thomas… I guess you’ve never seen The Great Pumpkin either, have you!?

As Mark swivels his head around to see where the sound is emanating, he is reminded that he is not alone… whereupon he shows a  brief flash of empathy…

Really, JJ?  #whocares… you are a means to an end, and will probably not survive this story…

Yea, Mark… we see it.  Congratulations.  Would you like a Scooby Snack®?

Story of Mark’s life.  Rent-free at Lost Forest.  Complete freedom of movement…

Bad Joke.

Well, he didn’t find the actual cave opening, (as was suggested by a faithful reader,) but rather a critical landmark…  Which could probably have been noticed by anyone looking up and not fixated on the map…

But what happened to the bees?  Is Doc off camera getting stung to death!?