15C Cloudy
My up island distant cousin came for a visit yesterday. Too bad we didn't live closer. M won two out of three games yesterday but that wasn't enough to move on so they are out of the tournament.
Rain keeps threatening and fall is definitely here. Have to do some running about this morning so have to get on with the day.
I've been thinking that I may not continue with serializing my various books, maybe put out an excerpt from any new ones. They are available if anyone wants them from other sources. Does anyone want to comment? Please do.

but the exertions of the long day soon over came the annoying buzzing and he fell into a deep sleep.

  When he awoke it was dawn the sun just rising on the eastern horizon, he shivered and drew the clothes around him then struggled to a sitting position. ‘What day is this?’ he wondered, suddenly the question seemed important.  He put his head back, thinking.  ‘We left Tuesday morning, Wednesday I went down the river and made it to here so this must be Thursday.’  He unbuckled his belt and pulled it out a short distance, taking the ‘leatherman’ he scratched “tue” and made a tiny notch on the belt’s edge then he added two more notches, ‘should have only put in two notches, should do them at the end of the day’ he thought.  ‘No more till tomorrow night’.

  He got to his feet, packed everything up again then looking about he walked over to a small boulder and rolled it over, underneath several brown centipedes scurried about franticly, he scooped them up and holding them in his clenched fist he squeezed them, squishing them. He opened his fist, pinched their tiny black heads off then with only the smallest hesitation popped them into his mouth and chewed until he could swallow them.

He shuddered slightly as they went down, ‘gotta get off this pure protein diet’ he thought. ‘But that wasn’t too bad’.  He rolled a few more rocks and repeated his performance, once he found some large black beetles but found they had too much exo-skeleton and gagged when he tried to swallow them.

  He started out again.  In a short while he came to a series of alluvial ridges each one rising higher than the last, he realized that he was approaching the preliminary climb along the side of the notched mountain he had been moving toward.  In spite of the ups and downs he felt he was making good time and felt he had two miles in when he stopped for his first rest.

  As he rested he thought he could here the far off drone of an airplane, he jumped to his feet and looked all about but to no avail.  He whipped out the compass and opening it he played the mirror against the sun, hoping desperately that by some chance a flash from the mirror might be spotted.  But with no direction to focus on he knew it was a forlorn hope.

  He looked ahead, seeing the ground rising and rising before him, ‘I’ll get up on that high ridge and then I’m going to have to reassess what I’m going to do, climbing way up is going to be hard work and less chance of finding food and water, maybe a better chance of attracting attention but also a better chance of getting hurt.  C’mon lets get going so I can decide’.  He started off again.

  It took him a full hour he estimated by the time he reached the ridge top, as the crow flies it couldn’t have been more than half a mile.

  Beyond the ridge to the south the land rose, mountains one after the other stretched barren rock fingers into the sky crevasses could be discerned rupturing and rendering many of the peaks into single and groups of monoliths.  ‘A moonscape?’ he thought, ‘no not even on the moon, these are the Rocky Mountains and that out there is why they were named that way.  ‘I’ve got no choice I have to change course’.

  He slipped off his pack and dug out the map.  It had survived reasonably well, a few stains here and there but his pencil lines were still there.  He unfolded it and then refolded it so that the exposed area included everything west of the Fort Nelson River but east of Toad River and from just north of the Yukon border to the Alaska Highway.  It was an area of almost five hundred square miles and he was some where in it.

  He stared at the map, dismay started to build from the pit of his stomach and when he raised his eyes to look out once again the dismay verged on panic.  For a few seconds he almost let himself be overwhelmed, self pity burgeoning through his mind and spirit, then he abruptly stood, turned in a half circle and raising his head he closed his eyes and forced himself to think about the miles he had come, the river he had escaped.  He tried to envision what lay ahead, quelling only the negative thoughts