Sunday. I woke up with a raw feeling in my throat and a pool of semen cooling on my belly.

I know that wet dreams are entirely natural, but I was embarassed. I didn't say anything to Seth. Instead, I cleaned up as discretely as possible (i.e. hardly at all) and hoped he wouldn't notice.

We packed lunches and hit the road again. Our destination this time was Mesa Verde. However, after we'd been on the road for 20 minutes without getting a ride, Seth changed his mind and decided he wanted to go to Trimble Hot Springs instead. This annoyed me but I agreed.

We walked back through town on our way to a different highway, but before we got there I discovered that Trimble was a place to swim. I had been imagining geysers and the like. So we took yet another detour back to Seth's house to get my swimsuit. By this time we were pretty tired; we'd been hiking around for the better part of the morning without getting anywhere. Seth took a nap for a couple hours.

Eventually we did get to Trimble. We got in for half price becuz the hot springs were "broken" -- only 101°F.

The most noteworthy event of the day, to my mind, came on the way back to Durango. We got picked up by a woman. It was to be the one and only ride I got from a female all summer. We rode in the back of her pick-up with her friendly yellow dog, Samantha. She had a Greenpeace decal in her rear window.

That night my sore throat got worse. I had strange hunger cravings. Seth and I went to a local place and got some cream of broccoli soup. We talked, and resolved some of the friction that had been growing between us. Seth's a tough one to figure. Sometimes I feel he's very complex, like there must be a whole hell of a lot going on just beneath the surface. Other times I get the eerie sensation that there's nothing there at all.

On Monday I was going to accompany Seth to work at the National Forest Service.