As more and more strangers mysteriously appear in the background (testifying to the fact that Tess Tigress and the Hog-Hunting Heroines were not the only foolish campers), Rivera wraps up another Mark Trail adventure. We must assume that emergency services will eventually show up and everybody will get back home. Practical issues such as finding or replacing personal belongings, equipment, and ruined SUVs are not the stuff of adventure stories, it seems. Well, this kind of “suddenly, the end!” is typical for Mark Trail stories:  Survive a landslide in Nepal one day, eat flapjacks with the family the next day.

What are we to take from this flood disaster story, other than Tess’s narcissism and Mark’s pragmatic defeatism? Well, we got a flash flood story that downplayed any actual serious effects. Nobody was seriously in danger. Nobody died. No crop fields were destroyed. No animals lost their lives. Whatever property was destroyed or lost is simply ignored. Was there a widespread disaster or was it just the campground? That “river” of floodwater behind the group certainly suggests something much, much bigger. But that’s a subject for a different comic strip, perhaps. In short, Jules Rivera did a bit of disservice by treating the flood as just fodder for Mark in yet another contest of wills with the opponent of the month.

But, it’s time to say “Adios, amigos!” to this group of forgettable characters as we are also left wondering what the point was for introducing Venus Verité into the story. Was it just so she could be the person with a working phone? Hard to support, since we saw Mark using a phone that didn’t look like the phone Venus had. Was it to add some uptown spice to a warming tray of country hicks? Or was Venus added to the story because Jules Rivera wanted to pay homage to a friend or idol of hers? Shucks, I don’t know. I’m just asking.