Prolog: For a long time, I was puzzled by the fact that there was no “Like” button on my post pages. I had finally forgotten about this until I started seeing “Likes” tabulating on my pages! Huh!? Where did they come from? In the WordPress settings, the Like button setting was enabled, but I still saw nothing. One of my readers even told me she only sees Like on the Comments page. I didn’t see it there, either.

I use MS Edge, so I went through its settings to see if there was anything to change. Nothing. I brought up Chrome and there was the Like button where it should be on the main page! Now I was really puzzled. Why Chrome and not Edge? After a lot of cogitation and throwing CDs at my heavily dented door, I had a wild idea and turned off Adblock just for WordPress. Lo and behold (as they say), the LIKE button now shows up on the daily blog! Man am I getting slow. Well, on to today’s Mark Trail strip:

Okay, put away any excitement for Cherry’s story as we return to Rusty and Mark. The Trails do move in their own, restricted circles. For Mark, it’s people like faux-Prof. Bee Sharp, Diana Daggers, Rob Bettancourt (Cricket Bro) and his brother, and finally his dad. For Cherry there are Georgia, Honest Ernest, Violet Cheshire, and various members of the Sunny Soleil Society. For Rusty, it’s his buds. Yeah, there is some comfort in familiarity, of course, but there is also tedium. At least here, we have Rusty’s friends. Most kids like to spend time with their friends, so it is only natural to see them reappear when the strip focuses on Rusty. So, we give Rusty a pass, but not his mom and dad.

I don’t get the gag in panel 4 about Mark being “worth waiting for.” Those kids were neither expecting Mark nor waiting for him. More sarcasm? Rivera is supposed to be expanding the Trailverse to allow other family members to get some of their own face time. So why does Rivera continue to redirect attention to Mark? Can’t these kids just have their own adventure for once (think of the movie “Stand by Me”), or at least hold Mark back until the kids get into trouble and need to be rescued. It’s time for the kids to start making their own decisions and mistakes.