The wolves stopped in their tracks, sizing up the mother and her cubs. It had been over a week since their last meal and they were getting desperate. The cubs would make a good meal, but there were high risks taking on the mother Grizzly. A decision had to be made and the wrong choice could signal the end of the pack. It was supposed to be a dream vacation. They had planned it over a year in advance so that it would be perfect in every way.

“Ingredients for life,” said the backside of the truck. They mean food, but really food is only 1 ingredient of life. Life has so many more ingredients such as pain, happiness, laughter, joy, tears, and smiles. Life also has hard work, easy play, sleepless nights, and sunbathing by the ocean. Love, hatred, envy, self-assurance, and fear could be just down aisle 3 ready to be bought when needed. How I wish I could pull ingredients like these off shelves in a store.

The paper was blank. It shouldn’t have been. There should have been writing on the paper, at least a paragraph if not more. The fact that the writing wasn’t there was frustrating. Actually, it was even more than frustrating. It was downright distressing.

Since they are still preserved in the rocks for us to see, they must have been formed quite recently, that is, geologically speaking. What can explain these striations and their common orientation? Did you ever hear about the Great Ice Age or the Pleistocene Epoch? Less than one million years ago, in fact, some 12,000 years ago, an ice sheet many thousands of feet thick rode over Burke Mountain in a southeastward direction.

The amber droplet hung from the branch, reaching fullness and ready to drop. It waited. While many of the other droplets were satisfied to form as big as they could and release, this droplet had other plans. It wanted to be part of history. It wanted to be remembered long after all the other droplets had dissolved into history. So it waited for the perfect specimen to fly by to trap and capture that it hoped would eventually be discovered hundreds of years in the future.

The wolves stopped in their tracks, sizing up the mother and her cubs. It had been over a week since their last meal and they were getting desperate. The cubs would make a good meal, but there were high risks taking on the mother Grizzly. A decision had to be made and the wrong choice could signal the end of the pack.

Patrick didn’t want to go. The fact that she was insisting they must go made him want to go even less. He had no desire to make small talk with strangers he would never again see just to be polite. But she insisted that Patrick go, and she would soon find out that this would be the biggest mistake she could make in their relationship.

What were they eating? It didn’t taste like anything she had ever eaten before and although she was famished, she didn’t dare ask. She knew the answer would be one she didn’t want to hear. What were they eating? It didn’t taste like anything she had ever eaten before and although she was famished, she didn’t dare ask. She knew the answer would be one she didn’t want to hear.

The water rush down the wash and into the slot canyon below. Two hikers had started the day to sunny weather without a cloud in the sky, but they hadn’t thought to check the weather north of the canyon. Huge thunderstorms had brought a deluge o rain and produced flash floods heading their way. The two hikers had no idea what was coming. It was supposed to be a dream vacation.

He had three simple rules by which he lived. The first was to never eat blue food. There was nothing in nature that was edible that was blue. People often asked about blueberries, but everyone knows those are actually purple. He understood it was one of the stranger rules to live by, but it had served him well thus far in the 50+ years of his life.