The Narrative Image

In our last episode, after appreciating the subtle nuances of Kip’s latest margarita recipe, we were treated to the intermittent unveiling of the Milky Way as patchwork clouds streamed over us to the West. Cows, emboldened by the cover of darkness, venture out to the dry lake’s terminal puddle where the last delicate grasses rise from drying mud.  Minds, free from the constraints of day to day routines, become free to ponder the day’s events and images — to decipher messages preserved in stone for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. We are by no means the first to sit comforted by our campfire in this shallow basin. Doubtless, others sat before us, watching the universe display its bright jewels. Here, perhaps before a more convincing lake, those others noted the arrivals and departures of skittish deer and elusive big-horn sheep — not today’s tame cows that pulverize sensitive shorelines with great bovine hooves and trample into the mud a generous portion of...

Uncle Rico did a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation. "144 beers." he mumbled, "assuming we each drink 12 beers a day". "I assume bringing water would be entirely out of the question?" I broached. But he just looked at me as if I were entirely crazy. I didn't know about Kip for sure, but I was having a hard time fitting the concept of 12 beers a day into a low carbohydrate eating routine. I was also having a hard time fitting 48 beers into my kayak. In an act of unparalleled beneficence, Uncle Rico stacked my ice chest on the towering pile of gear extruding from the cockpit of his stable fishing platform/drilling rig/aquapod, relieving me of my ill conceived plan to tow it in a leaking rubber raft. We set off around the sheltered south side of Long Island on water so smooth you wouldn't even think it was Willapa Bay , where 9% of all oysters in the United States are grown (thank you Wikipedia entry on Willapa Bay ). ...