Hi tylertwo. Would you consider yourself a logical or an emotional person?

I am a very emotional person. While I also consider myself a logical person, that logic is generally unrecognizable to other people.

Wouldn't it be weird if I somehow had the power to see everybody's mistakes, even after they delete them? It's good to be king...

a box of wine breeds many mistakes i find after a long day in the sun. haha I maybe erased more posts of mine than kept. we'll just blame it on sun stroke.

This is pretty obvious from your writing, you seem to have learnt the entire desert survival guide in 6 days so far; are you like some Bear Grylls/Rambo love child?! (This isn't me raising doubts - It's training you never forgot a word of/have researched later/taken writers licence with/w/e)

The quickest 7 pages I've ever read on here, despite there being x10 the average amount of words, expertly written, you write brilliantly.

You were pretty harsh on the guy that raised authenticity concerns, after all this time, and all the times you've told the story you must have encountered some doubters? If not your friends are more polite than mine! I was once interviewed by MI5, after a lead passed from the FBI that I could be a potential terrorist threat; and no one I told believed me. NB I'm not a terrorist.

I hope your dogs OK.

Why didn't you wake your friends up the moment The Bunster ran towards the woods? I would wake my friends there and then. I don't know what the next move would have been. I imagine it would have been sitting up all night long terrified, and armed. - But there's no way I'm waiting till the morning.

Yes, I totally agree that I was too harsh on him. I do get too emotional at times, especially over the dog. (Buster's doing well, thanks) I will find a way to make up to the guy for it...

The desert story I've told many times as a lecture series for 6th graders before they went to Outdoor Lab, a "soft" mountain experience offered by my school district. We did tracking, plant identification, tools and lots of other things while spending a week in the mountains. It was the culminating event for Life Science and Native American units that they had taken over the years. Of course, we had food and cabins while up there. (I went several times in the Winter, but wow, that survival would be hard!). My trip was a little bit of setting the stage, to make them feel like they were really surviving.

I also used it as "filler" for odd times teaching Middle School, there are plenty of those, lol. They seemed to like it. Thanks for the kudos on my writing, sometimes I think it's kind of sing/songy (!?) and weird sounding to my ears.

As far as the Bundy story, that was only to adults, but IRL I am VERY daunting and no one would ever question me, lol. I think that's the weirdest thing for me, because I'm on 2+2 getting used to things that are unlike anything I've ever experienced before. (And my friends and family think I'm nuts for being online at all.) I was an educator, a business owner and a martial artist, so it was pretty much yes sir/no sir my whole life.

on the internet, no one knows you're a dogkarate master

Et tu brute...(I am very disappointed in you...)

Perhaps I was unclear (although the laughing smiley conveys what I was trying to say), but my students never said yes sir/no sir (they were the worlds best arguers, lol), the business was all real estate (so no debate there) and the person saying yes sir/ no sir would be me (and yes, I would follow the Master anywhere.)

This has been an exercise in futility...

To my friends, I give a hearty thank you! To the rest of you, I can do no more harm than wish the life that you currently have continues forever.

Why didn't you wake your friends up?! If it was a film, it would be a clearing plot hole.. I'd shouting at the TV.

After a careful rewatching of "A Bug's Life", I have decided to rededicate myself to to my journey. I shall continue with the desert story until I reach a timely end.

First, a solemn sojourn to the water park for the "end of days", bringing a symbolic finish to one more Summer. The final ride down the speed ride bringing me that one step closer to that giant wave pool in the sky...

I don't know. If I was on that survival thing and the guides started to try screwing with our heads on top of everything else ... i don't know. Seems it would be fair at that point to kill and eat them.

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Our guides told us that we had never really been alone before. I didn't completely believe them, because I had traveled by myself as a kid (hitching around the country) and was always pretty self sufficient. Much of our training was in preparation for solo and because I had never made fire by myself, I was worried more about suffering through those days without heat or cooked food than being alone.

The mind plays funny tricks when you are suffering. One time we were walking along in a group and I suddenly smelled onions. Because it was so strong, I started looking around. Sure enough, a bunch of little onions were growing right by our path. Those of course went right in to our pouches and they made a great addition to the stew.

By this time we were adept at catching lizards and snakes (and of course bugs), but larger animals were always difficult. I had never killed anything before, but I was prepared to do so to live. We learned to trap rodents using traps that they taught us how to design, but it was always hit or miss. Anything that can survive on the desert is very smart and almost always smarter than a person. Several times we caught rabbits and those always seemed as if they made all the difference in our survival that day. The addition of anything that had any fat on it was a huge deal and made us all act sort of silly when we sat around the fire that night.

Our stories at night changed over the days, as they took on more of a strangely symbolic feeling. We talked about the past inhabitants of our world as if they were sitting right there with us, guiding us in our decisions. I became more conscience of being alive and much more thankful for every little gift that nature would begrudgingly give up.

It was just a couple of days before solo, when we would give up our shoes and be sent on to the desert, that I became more confident that I could survive. Although I had not made fire yet, I decided that I could just tough it out and at least make it. The Native Americans used a technique where they would wrap up a glowing ember from the night fire in a nest similar to the one used for fire starting. It would stay glowing for hours inside the bundle before it could be taken out and used to start another fire.

I had mastered this art fairly well, so that I could keep the ember hot for about four hours. I had hoped that I could somehow sneak one of these "cheaters" out to my camp, but of course the instructors had other plans.

also -

Epic thread, but you should write more often and longer.

You are right, but I have a really good reason, lol. We decided not to call it a Summer and we have been spending every day at the water park. It's like being in paradise and I am loathe to give it up. Alas, everyone but me goes back to school (as teachers and students), so it really has come to an end.

Very few things in life touch perfection, but Summer; laying in the sun, playing in the wave pool, riding the speed slides and even just floating around "Lazy River" (just like South Park!) is as close as it gets for me.

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When I woke up the morning of solo, I don't remember being afraid. I felt that I was prepared to survive and even if I would never be able to make fire (I was far more worried about not finding water.), I knew that the "animal" in me would somehow be able to live. They walked us out individually onto desert and pointed to rock outcroppings in the distance, telling me that maybe I would find enough water to live for the entire time.

They told me to walk five miles, with those rocks always directly in front of me and not to come back until I was given a sign. Before I set out I was required to trade my hiking boots with sandals that I had made with the bark of the ubiquitous mesquite bush. I had practiced walking around camp in them so, I felt fairly confident that I could travel the necessary distance in them now.

Of course, I had no idea how far five miles was, time and distance meant nothing by then, and I didn't even ask them what sign I should be looking for, I just started walking. When I had traveled several miles I saw a black dot out in the desert. We were trained to know that anything that looks out of place means something and should be explored, that there are no coincidences in nature. Walking for awhile longer toward that shape, I could see it was a small bear.

When I got close enough, I could see that he was at a small spring. Water! I think I jumped in the air and hollered, because instantly the bear ran off into the sand dunes and I never saw him again. It didn't really matter, because at that point I would rather have died right there than given up that water.

I assume now that our instructors knew that spring was there for me to find, but at the time I felt that it was pure luck and that if I hadn't seen that bear in the distance, I would have died. I was completely overjoyed and after drinking until I was sick, I sat down next to that water and started making plans to survive those next days. The only sure thing was, that I was not leaving my spring and that there was nothing on Earth that could take it from me without a fight.

I began breaking up sticks to try to make a fire, when I made an error that could potentially kill me right there. I cut my hand. People think that you need to be a tough guy to survive, but it's actually the opposite of that. Even the smallest injury can lead to infection that can sap your strength quickly. I guess I was excited over the water, but for whatever reason I let down my guard and cut my hand pretty badly.

I was sitting there bleeding badly, ticks embedded in my arm, never having made fire, when a wave of self doubt crossed through my head. I hadn't had those doubts since the beginning of training and being alone I guess just made them worse. To keep my mind occupied I used the trick of staying busy until the thoughts passed, so I began trying to make fire as fast as I could. Not the way you do it, but I didn't want to think too hard about where I really was, more than a week from being back in civilization. I knew it would be a cold time of suffering through uncooked food, freezing nights and waves of self doubt if I couldn't start that fire.

I was chipping away with my knife and flint when all of a sudden a small spark flew onto my sweatshirt. It was just sitting there glowing, so I started blowing on it. I pushed it down into my little nest and and it started to smoke. When my nest began smoking, I started adding larger and larger sticks to the bundle until I began to see flames and I knew that I had made fire. I also knew I wasn't going to let it go out for the remainder of my solo, because I didn't expect to ever get that lucky again.

With the fire going, I immediately burned the ticks out of my arm and started to make yarrow tea. I wrapped up my cut hand in more yarrow and twine and sat there thinking how wonderful life was and how now I had the ability to thrive, rather than just survive.

You make "points" (arrow/spear heads) by using fire. You heat up a piece of flint or quartz until it glows and then you touch a piece of straw with a drop of water on it. It makes a tiny explosion where a little chip of rock comes off. As you work your way around the stone it makes an extremely sharp edge, that can be used to cut or stab and these are set into spears or arrows. I added a sharpened point to my spear just in case that bear came back and to scare off any other animals that might decided that my water should belong to them.

We were taught to use an atlatl to help us throw the spear much farther than just using your arm, but it never helped my accuracy much, so it didn't do much for my hunting. I stuck to my tried and true method of traps with twine attached to a stick holding up a rock, to catch my food. You could study the tracks in the sand and learn where small animals were traveling back and forth and while it takes many hours to catch anything, those are hours that you have plenty of.

Because I was near water, there were a small amount of cattails growing in the area, so I made little cakes with ants and pollen. I ate lizards and a couple of rodent things, but I'm not really sure what they were. Mostly I worked on nets made out of twine, tenderizing and cooking cactus and just thinking. Because I didn't need to worry about water, my solo went well. I thought it would be difficult to pass the time without reading, but there are always plenty of things to do and I spent endless hours wandering further and further away from camp looking for food.

One morning, I awoke to the sound of coyotes right by my camp. I looked up suddenly to see a small pack, but as soon as I moved they ran off. I figured that I would see more large animals near that spring, but I guess my strange smell kept most of them away.

Then, the last day on solo, I heard a horn blowing in the distance. I assumed it was the signal so I packed up my stuff, sadly said goodbye to the only fire I have ever made and took one long drink from the spring. I was psyched that the journey was almost over, but I was sad as well. After walking back to where I started out from, it was good to see the others as we all straggled up; even as a determined loner, I guess on some level I needed people even then.

We were told that we had a ten mile run to the truck the next day, but first we had to find shelter, because a major storm was coming. We started hiking in search of the next water, but the only water we found was under a cattle guard, the first sign of civilization that any of us had seen in weeks. Of course, we drank it all, as dirty as it was.

This is an interesting picture, because it is so true. There are black seeds inside of yucca pods that can be crushed up and made into a dye. We stained our faces into scary designs and it wasn't just trying to look the part.

If I were ever trapped in a survival situation in the future, taking on this look is the first thing that I would do. Our appearance became an outward manifestation of our psychological will to survive. Our looks meant that we had become the hunters, not the hunted and that we were the ones to be feared. Whether that was really true wasn't important, because we believed it at the time.

These stories are illuminating.

Best blog imo Tyler, keep the stories coming