After driving 15 mph for what seemed like two hours, we all saw a wildly erect, wild horse.  Gina and I could hardly hold back the laughter, as the stallion's dong hung down at least four feet.  "It" was blacker and almost the same height as Gina's favorite actor, Wesley Snipes.  It got to the point where we both held in our laughter so much that our belly's ached and our eyes watered.  Deb never even cracked a smile.  She was too busy admiring "the beautiful creature God created."  Either she had absolutely no concept of the immense pecker or she was giving an Academy Award-winning performance.

A few more twists, cliffs and turns brought us to a steep incline that dropped down into a cheesy little trickling brook.  Gina's first reaction was "all that for this?"  I seconded her motion quietly, hoping our gracious/twisted/volatile hostess didn't hear.  As soon as we started our fabled routine, dark clouds and a brisk north wind quickly moved in.  Our fearless leader instructed us to finish the tests and not to worry about the ominous looking weather.  "A little rain can't hurt you two tough easterner's...can it?"  She waited in vain for the expected responses.  The data from this stream was no different from 95% of every other stream tested.  By this time we could accurately guess all the results just by looking at the surroundings, but we plodded on. 

Before finishing, the rains came on hard, then abruptly changed to Hostess powdered-donut ($.79 for a 6 pack) sized hail.  Deb said, "we're here to conduct our chemistry... go about your business."  At this point Gina and I pretended to be done with the ridiculous data and high-tailed it back to the dry/safe truck, dodging the painful slabs of precipitation all the way.  Deb stuck around for another ten minutes of bruising and finished the last of the redundant tests as if she were trying to prove herself to us.  Then she clumsily sprinted back, pointing up at the road we came in on, shouting something inaudible all the way.  When she finally made it close enough, Gina interpreted her babbling, "I think she's saying head up the hill now before it all washes out."  By this time she was about 20 feet from us, but I hit the accelerator anyway, shooting mud all over the place, including Deb.  Even with 4-wheel drive low, we couldn't begin to make it up the 89 degree angle of the hill.  Eventually, we slid out of control, backwards then sideways losing the bulk of the 20 feet we'd covered.  From the rear-view mirror, I could see Deb all haggard, drenched and muddy, yelling at us again.  By the time the truck slithered to the bottom, the rain/mini-donuts had stopped.  Deb picked herself up and pretended to be ready to take over as commander-in-chief. 

She mumbled aloud as she hopped in the driver's seat, "oh big mama...oh big mama...it was a ten minute squall...oh big mama."  She desperately tried to force the truck up to the safer confines of the

next ridge, in the process creating huge divots all over the already primitive road.  Finally, after making it next to impossible for us to cross all the sprawling gullies, she got out, ready with a new plan.  "Rod, take the ax out of the back and start cutting down sage bushes.  Gina, gather the bushes and get the shovel...a ten minute squall...that's all...a ten minute squall...oh big mama...a ten minute squall."  Deb was reeling, barely holding herself together as she hurried back to radio the Forest Service SO (Supervisor's Office, Forest Service people love acronyms) for assistance. 

As I chopped down a bunch of defenseless shrubs, Gina gathered and threw them into the strategic spots, in hopes of creating at least a little bit of traction.  Deb stumbled/ slipped back over, and paused, as if she was reaching way back into her soul trying to exude some confidence.  "We are out of range.  I can't contact SO...a ten minute squall.  Wheeeeew...oh big mama.  I am going to walk up to that peak," she said, pointing to a jagged rock over a mile away," and try to call again.  A ten minute squall... wheeeeew."  At this point it was looking like we might be staying at Hat Creek for the night. 

When she was far enough away, the imitations started flying faster than the sage I was shoveling.  "A TEN MINUTE SQUALL... OH BIG MAMA...A TEN MINUTE SQUALL...WHEEEEEEW."  Even though it was totally her fault for sticking around to finish the dumb-ass tests, ignoring all the warning signs and then ordering the near fatal road churning, goofing on Deb (while therapeutic) was like shooting fish in a bucket.   I don't think either of us was too worried about our predicament.  We'd been through many uncomfortable/stress-filled/ weird-ass nights together and if we didn't make it home tonight we'd manage.  On the other hand, we didn't know how Deb would handle the predicament.

Gina found a couple good-sized rocks and logs and threw them into some of the deeper holes.  I filled in some holes with ample amounts of mud, then covered it all with sage.  This went on for a while, and since Deb was nowhere in sight we decided to try to conquer the mud-slide on our own.  Gina got in the truck bed, allegedly distributing her minuscule weight to all the strategic places, thus aiding the process.  We actually made it half way up without too much trouble.  Then it got kinda hairy, so we stopped and moved all the sage, rocks and logs up a level.  After repeating this process two more times, we made it out of the valley and back atop the ridge-like road, all without any sign of Deb. 

It was now around 6 p.m., a good three hour drive away from home with a messy road, no boss and darkness looming.  I started blowing the horn in the dant dant de dant dant, dant! dant! international-horn-
blow mode.  I was hoping she would get pissed off enough to come back and yell at me for disturbing the wildlife.  Then we could leave and never have to go into the field with her again.  After a few moments of contemplating driving all the way back without our disturbed boss and returning with a search party, Gina spotted her mud soaked spec on the horizon.  When she made it back, she silently got in and away we went - nary a word spoken.  A few miles later, she began freakishly mumbling again with a little laughter mixed in.   "A ten minute squall... hehe...a ten minute squall," to which Gina replied with, "Oh big mama... hehehe...oh Big mama."  This relieved many tensions and now she had a great story to tell all the office slugs for the rest of the summer.

--Rod Murphy, Jr.