yeah...i know. but i still have a little of today left - it's not even dark out here. i miss fireflies. we don't have them here in CA. i remember when i was a kid my neighbor jason was going to collect hundreds of 'em and glue 'em to his bike so that it glowed. how smart that boy was! ;) we just have misquitos here...not even enough to justify a bug zapper...used to love listening to that while swimming in our pool in pennsylvania when i was a kid. zzt. zzt. zzzzt. zzt. ZZT.zzt...ZzT...bZZZZZUUUUTTTTT! damn, that was a big one.

where was i? no, not another planet. oh - my story. getting lost. background: on day 14 of the trip, one of our instructors, allen, fell and injured his knee. (he later found out he fractured his kneecap) 4 students were sent on the 12 mile hike to evacuate him (evac)...he could still walk - they did the 12 miles in one day! so, there were 7 students and one instructor (melissa) left. we continued on our route, and they met up with us four days later. this is our first day with the smaller group. we hike to lilley park (not 'park' in that sense, but it was a giant open grassy field.) where we are to camp for the night. we arrived early, and melissa suggested we go see the wolf pens.

the mexican wolf is a species long extinct from the gila wilderness, and they are attempting to reintroduce it. they released a male wolf and a pregnant female wolf a few weeks prior. the pen is the roped off area where they put the wolves to begin to adapt to the environment. and, of course, we were all hoping we just might see a wolf, though chances were highly unlikely.

i had a slight headache, and debated not going (two other people stayed behind) but decided i didn't want to pass up the chance of maybe seeing a wolf. so, i trailed along at the back of the line. not paying much attention...just watching my feet...we walked for about 10 minutes down the trail, and turned off. they had taken a compass bearing to get us back to the trail, but i didn't realize they even did this. we walked another 5 minutes or so, and my head was POUNDING...and i didn't have any water. (my headaches are often caused by not drinking enough, so water usually helps) i asked melissa if it'd be ok if i headed back to camp. i explained to her that i hadn't been paying attention to where we were. she got a compass from somebody and handed it to me. 'follow the bearing to camp' she said 'you'll hit the trail soon'...

i thought she meant the bearing would take me to camp, as i didn't realize they had taken a bearing when they went off trail. she thought that i knew the bearing would take me to the trail. i held the compass out and followed the bearing. 180. walked 5 minutes, didn't see any sign of a trail, but saw the creek, which i knew we had walked along part of the way out.

little did i realize that there were tons of drainages/creeks all over. it flowed in about the direction of my bearing, so in my head at the time, it all made sense. followed the creek for about 10 minutes....

stay tuned for episode two...too tired to finish typing tonight. :)