Oh.  My.  Goodness…  How could I have missed this one!?  I mean, this is right in my wheelhouse!  Unless of course I was too… ahem… into the movie when I saw it in high school!!

And for whatever reason, there seems to be a conspiracy among internet providers of the colored version of the strip!  So Trail Noir it is!!

Rusty’s friend Mara… Hmmmm… Now that we know what Mr. Allen is referencing here I think Rusty is quite in over his head!!

Joe would appear to be Anglo… an expat of some kind, running from the law and laying low driving Touristas to Ancient Ruins!!  He seems harmless enough…

The overly polite and formal service staff member (concierge?) is addressing Rusty as “Mister,” not the Spanish equivalent of “Master,” which is probably more appropriate…

Mark’s pissed too, about the head fake, but wants to find cover…

But let’s get real for a moment… this amalgam of ’57 Chevy and Panel Truck isn’t exactly Jungle-worthy either…

Ha!  Yes, indeed, great look-up, Moss!  Recalling a Playmate, no less!

Oh Rusty… Did you really think that limo was for you?  I am not prone to schadenfreude, but seeing the disappointment on Rusty’s face does bring me certain joy…

And what are we left with?  Another strange study in extreme welding…  Sort of like Sid’s toy collection in Toy Story…  or even this beauty, spied in the parking lot of the local Fleet Farm…

Pure Sconi, if every I saw it…

Really?

I wonder who put the property up to this?  The Professor?  Mara’s Father?  Mara, who by the way, continues to grow and dwarf poor Rusty… Look at the shoulders on that lass!   At least this is a serious and needed step up from the taxicab that brought them to the resort.  Rusty is “down” with it though… he’s only ever seen one of these on the TV at home, that is when he’s allowed to watch something other than NatGeo, PBS, or the Nature Channel…

Blah blah blah… Becky (hubba hubba…) Blah blah blah… Took earlier bus… Blah blah blah… dig site…  Blah blah blah… Here’s your ride…

Good heavens… what a waste of ink!  Good thing I take this all in electronically…  Unless of course this is a big set-up and Mark and children are going to be made ransom-bait…

As Mark announces himself and his “expectations,” he informed that the bus has left without him…

Already I don’t like the sound of this…  What “arrangements” have been made, here?  And again, how is it that Mara’s parents instantly trust this Trail guy to keep track of their daughter?  Don’t they know what typically happens whenever Mark heads off into the jungle?  Nothing good, that’s for sure…

I had assumed earlier that, by virtue of his proximity to Assistant Becky, that the male figure at the Dinner Table, not Mark, was in fact the Professor.  But no… seems we met “Mister Corday” instead who apparently is happier to NOT be on a first name basis with Mark…

What is with these goofy faces that keep popping up on these random, non-recurring characters… I honestly don’t know what to think of Mister Corday’s expressions in the first and third panels…  And really? You’re just going to let your daughter ‘tag along’ with a complete stranger?

And where the heck did the Doctor go?

Mark is relying on Becky to tell him the story of the “Lost Temple,”  when she rightly points out that the Professor can explain it better that she can…  But already Mark has his own version of Spidey-Sense going on…  that look in the middle panel gives away his natural skepticism, honed over the years as a writer…

Hey Becky, all Cherry asked for was a brief description of the Good Doctor’s discovery…

You don’t have to get all… well… raven-haired and bedroom-eyes sultry about it…   And as far as female assistants go, you certainly leave Carina in the dust…  Oh man, remember the months spent in the bioluminescent cave?  Ahhh! No!!!!!

And speaking of temples, Mark finds them all the time!  What’s the big deal here??

Hey- hold on on a darn minute here… I just noticed something… What’s Mark got in his right hand?  Is that a small pitcher of coffee creamer?  What Th-?! Mark has taken his coffee black since time immemorial… What is going on here?!

As we listen in on the post-dinner prattle… with Mrs. Corday calling the play by play, as if no one else at the table saw what excited the youths…

…we find that Mara and Rusty have indeed stolen away…

…only to find that Mara is about a head taller than Rusty!  Poor lad!  Life is so cruel… He’ll crush on her hopefully, only to have his affections go unrequited…

Considering that Mark and Cherry are wearing the same shirt/top that they traveled in, one has to wonder whether they have multiple instances of the same ensemble, or if they truly didn’t think to pack any other clothes?  Not to mention that the resort has no air conditioning, Mark’s gotta be sweltering in that long-sleeve, chamois-cloth number!  And after the 90 minute cab ride (also probably without air conditioning) it’s bound to be a little ripe…

So… we meet Archaeologist and Assistant (A little May-December going on there??) as well as Mara’s mother (Father apparently in the loo or simply off Camera- maybe filming?)  We know it’s Mara’s mother since the hair color is a match… She recalls going gray at an early age too… and refuses to color it!

A second look at Assistant Becky suggests that there might be a relation to Kelly Welly, the erstwhile siren of Trail’s-past who wanted only to gain Mark’s respect by scooping him on a story, all the while placing Mark in compromising situations vis-a-vis Cherry…

As the stilted and unlikely dialogue continues, we find out the names of the other characters in this current story arc…  And it seems the birds in the second panel are going along with it.  I can’t for the life and Google in me figure out what they are, though… a little help??

No, not the dreaded  Jim (for reasons unknown**) but rather Becky…  And so far Dr. Carter doesn’t have a first name…  (**oh, wait- a reference to Marlin Creed’s assistant!)

Do we know Marlin Creed?  Oh, yea… How soon we forget… the dude from the Zoo!  Cherry was clearly NOT IMPRESSED with Marlin’s tactics…

Thirty years?!  Mark, you are 35 years old…  Did you meet him when you were in kindergarten?  And for that matter, what is the Mark Trail backstory?  We know shockingly little about the Young Mark Trail, where he was spawned and what landed him in his current life…  I can see it now… a new strip- Young Mark Trail– Wouldn’t that be ripping?

As the camera pans back to feature a struggle between a mutated Scorpion and a juvenile Komodo Dragon (Indigenous or Invasive??) we see Mark, alone with Cherry, continuing to share “who’s coming to dinner…”

And are we to assume that Doctor Carter (PhD) is the Archaeologist that Rusty referred to on the plane when speaking to Mara?  And speaking of Rusty and Mara, where the heck did they toddle off to?? Not to mention everyone else?  Back to their Mai Tai’s and revelry now that the whale has been saved?

Whoa… Cherry… Do you have a past?  Was Jim a Jilted Lover?  Is the world really that small?

Cherry, why do you put up with this?

‘All-seeing’ and ‘all-knowing’ Mark is a tired schtick…  From the Airport gate scene to now this: withholding knowledge that there will be dinner guests… that has to test Cherry’s patience…  Notice how we don’t get to see her reaction to Mark’s “surprise…”

Let’s make up our minds, here!!

Mark has the BLUE highlights!! Please!

I am absolutely fascinated by all the different expressions that Rusty has been allowed to show through this story!  A regular Jim Carrey!

OK… I know!  too much Rusty!!  From eager to suave to perplexed to mind blown…

…it’s only natural to be mortified by your parents’ actions… it’s part of the plan- the plan that will get you to leave the nest at some point.  Except that you are locked in a world where no one actually ages… what hell… OK if you are perpetually in your mid thirties, but what if you are forever twelve years old?  Ick.  Awkward.  Voice cracking.  Confused.

And I will say it one more time… What’s with the mane of silver hair on Mara?  She’s of course drawn to be fetching, but the gray mop continues to be confusing, at least to me…

Or perhaps she is spinning in place, wanting to display her bikini-ready form in what her mother has covered with a sensible tankini…

Or maybe she’s blind? We certainly didn’t get that impression on the plane… And where are her parents?  Hopefully just off camera.  I wouldn’t want my daughter roaming the beaches all by herself…

So as Rusty and Cherry have a conversation about Mara, (like she’s not within earshot of them talking,) Rusty ponders the imponderable and Cherry strongly encourages him to “go say hello…”  So go on, boy… time to make a friend!

An’ a-one-a an’ a-two-a… into the water goes the whale.  Glad we didn’t drag that one out longer than it needed to be…

Now it’s time for some mea culpas…

What’s Mark doing in the first panel  The twist??  Working on his 7 minute abs?  Mr. Racing Stripes is feeling a bit sheepish about having doubted Mark, although he still hasn’t the foggiest idea who he’s dealing with…  I find it annoying anytime someone calls me “Buddy.”  I mean, how hard is it to introduce yourself and learn names??

If I am not mistaken, there was a relatively large gaggle of folks on the beach when Rusty (where’s Rusty?!) first pointed to them in the distance… Then there were six, not counting the Trails… and now there are only three, with Mark and Cherry making five??

Again with the beast reference… or in another context, “That’s what she said…”

And by the way, I didn’t know that whales could talk!!

Never daunted, or missing an opportunity to waggle his finger at someone, Mark lets Mr. Grumpy (off camera) know that he needn’t worry… that he’s an expert in matters pertaining to wildlife…

But what’s up with the lady in panel three?  Is this the angry panel?  She was just crying 30 seconds ago… Is she mad that Cherry’s swimsuit is from the same dye lot as hers?

But I repeat… can one hear the tide coming in?  And if tides are hours apart, wouldn’t that whale be suffocated under its own weight by now?  And I am sure that it didn’t occur to any of the other humans, before the Trails showed up, that they might work together to get the whale back in the ocean…  where it will probably lose its way again and get itself beached outside of the prying eyes and meddling hands of random (really) white folks on vacation…