Well. Today was rather eventful. It all started off perfectly well; All eight of us drove up to Silver Falls, dropping Dan at
the Windy Pass trailhead. He was going to bike up that trail and then down the Treasure Mountain trail, which
intersected it and came out a mile or two down the road from the Silver Falls trailhead. The funny thing about Silver
Falls is that the stream actually flows across the road at one point. And I really mean across the road-- you have to
drive through the water to get to the base of the falls. It was only about 6 or 8 inches deep, though, so we all got out of
the car and crossed on the stones, while Dad and Norbert drove the cars through. I took a picture of Dad crossing
(since I missed it with the mud before) but I don't think it will come out very well.

We parked at the base of the falls and walked up to it (about 10 minutes) with the food and ate lunch up there. Then
we felt a few drops of rain so we decided to head down before it got worse. Actually Norbert said "We'd better get
going so it doesn't rain," which reminded me of all the Powder of Sympathy business in the book, and I remarked that
the waterfall was probably sympathetically attracting the rain. In any case, it was a good thing we came down, because
just as we got to the bottom it started pouring. We stood under a little shed to wait for it to let up, and Mom said she
hoped Dan wouldn't get hypothermia, because he had rainpants, but no raincoat. I said she was being silly. Then it
started to hail. The hail pellets were about the size of peas. It stopped hailing after a few minutes, but kept raining. Then
it started hailing again. Then it was just raining. After 10 or 15 minutes, we decided we better just make a dash for the
cars. We all arrived safely, though rather wet.

Our original plan had been to eat lunch, then come down and explore the Quartz Lake trail, which was just down the
road. But since it was raining, not everyone wanted to go, so we sent Mom and Dad to wait for Dan, and Walden was
just going to sit in the van and wait for Norbert, Judy, Ethan, and me, who still wanted to take a look at the trail. By this
time it was barely raining, but the trail wasn't very clearly defined, so we sort of wandered around trying to find it. After
about 15 minutes we had just succeeded in finding what we thought was the trail when Judy and Norbert insisted we go
back to where Mom and Dad were; I'm still not exactly sure why-- I think maybe they thought Dan would be back and
they didn't want to keep them waiting. But Dan wasn't back, so we said we'd go for a half hour walk and then come
back. So we went back again, and headed along what seemed to be the trail. I think parts of it were the trail, but we
definitely got off the trail at a certain point. It didn't really matter, though. It was a nice walk across a field and through
the woods and along the riverbank. But since we weren't really on a trail, we had to walk through grass and underbrush
and our feet got soaking wet. We also heard a strange sort of honking and couldn't figure out if it was a car horn or an
elk or what. Then on the way back through the field, which was populated by cows, we realized it was a cow! It was
making these terribly loud bellowing sounds which were echoing off the mountains.

So we got back to Treasure Mountain where Mom and Dad were, and still no Dan. By this time it was a little after
3:00, and they couldn't figure out why he hadn't come out yet. They thought maybe he had decided to scrap the whole
thing and had turned around and was waiting at the Windy Pass trailhead, where he started from, even though they had
told him that if he couldn't make it up, he should just ride around on the road and meet us in the same place. They
figured they'd go check at Windy Pass just in case, which meant almost an hour round trip, and we had to sit and wait
at Treasure Mountain. They came back at 4, with no Dan. At this point they started getting rather concerned, because
the trail was only about 12 miles long, and a lot of downhill. And Dan had been going really fast on everything else this
week. So they thought something must have happened like either it was just so muddy that he couldn't ride and had to
walk, or that the bike had broken, or that he had slipped on the mud and gotten hurt.

So they decided it was time to call in the authorities. This meant we (Mom, Dad, Ethan, and I) had to drive into town to
the ranger station while Judy, Norbert, and Walden still waited by the trailhead. We got to the ranger station and first
called the house to make sure Dan wasn't there, which he wasn't. (Although Ethan pointed out that the house was
locked, so how would he get in even if he was there?) Then Dad was on the phone for quite a while talking to various
people. First he called the county sheriff, but it turned out that the trailhead where Dan started was actually in the next
county over (Mineral County) and the two counties don't have any cooperation agreement about this sort of thing, so
he had to call the Mineral County sheriff. Eventually he got off the phone and said the Mineral County sheriff was
coming to meet us at the Windy Pass trailhead but it would take him 45 minutes to an hour because it was way on the
edge of his territory. So we stopped at Circle K to get some food (it was 5 o'clock by now) and then headed towards
the trailhead. On the way we dropped Mom off to wait by the turnoff for the Treasure Mountain trailhead in case Judy
et al. came out with Dan. We said we would go and pick her up again as soon as the sheriff came.

Dad, Ethan, and I proceeded to the Windy Pass trailhead to wait for the sheriff. We got there a few minutes early and
waited till 5:50, when he should have showed up. Then we waited some more. And some more. He didn't show up
until almost 7:00, when it was already starting to get dark. (We had picked up Mom by this time and called the house
again.) Also, we were sort of expecting him to come with some other people so they could go up the trail, but he was
all alone. It became clear that he still wasn't convinced Dan wasn't going to come walking out any minute, because he
said that in good conditions, it would take 6 hours to walk the trail. Since it wasn't even good conditions, if Dan had to
walk, he really wasn't very late. But Dad was now quite concerned (and I admit I was getting a bit worried myself), and
convinced the sheriff that we really did need a search party. The sheriff said that meant he had to call in the horses, or
possibly the chopper... At which point Dad jumped on the chopper idea; hang the expense. Ethan and I exchanged
glances. I was now thinking, rather than "Cool! Helicopter!", that the horses seemed at least as good given the failing
light, and a hell of a lot cheaper. But Dad clearly was not thinking this. It took a few minutes to determine that the
nearest helicopter was in Durango, and that it would take half an hour just to get it off the ground, plus maybe 20
minutes or so to get over here. With luck they might have 10 minutes of daylight left. Seemed pretty silly to me, but Dad
was insistent.

Dad got in Sheriff's car, Sheriff taught Dad how to use the radio so when Sheriff went up in the chopper, they could
talk. Dad and Sheriff went to wait for the chopper, dispatching Mom with me and Ethan back to Treasure Mountain to
let Judy and Norbert know what was going on and make sure Dan still hadn't shown up. We got there around 7:45.
Dan was not there, and Judy said Norbert and Walden had set off up the trail at about 5:30, and were supposed to
return at 8:00. We dropped Ethan off to wait with Judy, then went back to report to Sheriff. On our way out, we ran
into Sheriff coming in. Turns out they cancelled the helicopter after all (too dark), and called the guy with the horses.
Told me and Mom to wait at the turnoff from the main road for the horses, which should arrive about 9:00. I have to
say, waiting there was a pretty terrible time. By now, even I was awfully worried, especially because it was not only
dark out, but had also gotten very cold. The horses thankfully arrived right on schedule, and we started driving ahead of
them back to the trailhead. It's only about 6 miles, but we were going about 15 miles an hour because of the horse
trailer, and it was taking forever. About halfway in, we ran into the Lechners on their way out. Sheriff thought it was still
possible Dan had just gone home, so he sent them home to check. They asked if I wanted to come. I said yes.

So I got in the van and we continued on home. At about 10:30, we finally pulled into the driveway, and-- the lights
were on in the house. Unbelievable. There was Dan, sitting in front of the computer, checking his email. He looked, I
may say, particularly sheepish. Nevertheless, I admit I was pretty darn glad to see him.

One might ask exactly what his story was. Well, it turns out that he started up the trail at 11:30, walking most of the
way because it was steep and slippery. When it started raining and hailing an hour later, he didn't have a raincoat and
began to be very cold, so he turned around and came down again. Then he started riding down the road, but when he
got to the turnoff for the Treasure Mountain trailhead, it was still raining, and he was still freezing. He didn't know if we
would be waiting there for him already or not, and didn't want to wait in the open, so he kept riding until he got to a
store, where he stopped to wait out the rain. He also called the house and left a message. Since it was the last day of
his bike rental, when it stopped raining he rode into town to the bike rental place to return the bike. He called again
from there and left a message telling us where he was and to come pick him up. This was about 4:00. Then he waited in
town, wandering around a bit, for a couple of hours. By this time it was pretty clear that we were not coming, and he
had figured out what was probably going on on our end of things, but he couldn't do anything about it. So he started
walking back to the house. It took him about three hours, but he finally got there at 9:30. As I mentioned before, the
house was locked, but, resourceful boy that he is, he simply broke in. He says it took him a little while to figure out how
to do it without damaging anything.

When we finally got back and found him there, we called the sheriff to let him know, then had something to eat and got
ready for bed. We were all totally exhausted. Mom and Dad finally got back an hour later, and we all went to bed.

It's amazing how whenever you're in a situation like this, you get more and more focused on what you're doing and less
and less willing to entertain other possibilities. I actually asked early in the afternoon if Dan might not have gone home
(which is why we called), and Judy says she suggested checking the bike store, but later on these ideas just got
completely subsumed by all the other stuff going on. I think the real problem was that the answering machine was pretty
new, and Judy and Norbert didn't know how to check the messages remotely. But it's pretty useless reanalyzing
everything; everything is always obvious in retrospect.