Pre-Rivera, it used to be the case that Mark would say goodbye to Cherry on their porch, so getting driven to the airport these days at least gives us a bit more of what was most likely kept “behind the scenes.” Other than that, it’s kind of the same ol’ thing, except for Rivera’s humor.

Speaking of airports, for those of you coming in late: The “Tom Hill Airport” name is a reference to one of the earliest and best Mark Trail artists, who not only handled the earlier Sunday nature strips but also ghosted a lot of the dailies that had Jack Elrod’s name on them. 

Anyway, I’m kind of surprised. This is the usual set of panels that I would expect to see published on a Saturday, as Rivera wraps up the prologue for the week. So, what will we see tomorrow? It occurred to me that it would be very interesting if Rivera would include a sequence of Mark trying to get through TSA Security. If there was ever a situation where humor and bad luck was called for, that would be it.