The dogs had arrived, we could here them at first light. The parents were there, trying to stay strong, grasping for hope, they said to Dylan “people get lost in the Australian desert all the time and survive, don’t they?”, Dylan, stricken assured them yes. Jump suited searches were fanning off the tracks, it was time for us to get out of the way and leave them to their search. As we said goodbye to Mark an Nate I noticed purple bracts of bougainvillea strewn on the forest floor, this mystery could be solved however as they had hitchhiked from their boxes of firewood. Mark gave them to me to spread somewhere beautiful for Magdalena, I pocketed them and we departed down own down the mountain, through Sausilito, across the Golden Gate.

We just floated around the Mission District, it was a beautiful day for waiting. The streets downtown were packed with Giant fans and the end of the game marked the time when our latest airbnb host would return home to let us in the door. Near the Castro rainbow flags fluttered in the same proliferation as the American ones downtown, in vintage shops hipster men rubbed shoulders with short haired women in the men’s section, which disenfranchised with secondhand H&M I had been browsing for tailored shorts, alas even in San Francisco they don’t make men’s shorts in tiny. Then when I was getting towards grumpy tired stage Dylan took charge and lined up in the epic queue for the best ice cream in San Francisco, letting me sit in the sun and people watch (what a champion he is!).

Then off on the train, right out out into the suburbs an hour away. It was so quiet here in the leafy burbs, we were staying on a balcony of a tiny apartment in a spacious (comparatively) tent, inside was a bed, desk and lamp, outside fairy lights bobbed in the breeze and their Siamese cat leapt in and out of the cat flat at the slightest movement yowling in pleasure. How did we find ourselves in such a place? ah, the trail running fairy had struck again, in the morning we were going to ride p a mountain for Dylan to run a 50km train race.

My email pinged, a message from Mark, they had found Magdalena’s body down a ravine, the search was over, the mystery remained. She had lived in Menlo Park, the very suburb we were staying in, the bougainvillea bracts cracked in my pocket, but this was not the place for them. We sent our thoughts out to her heartbroken parents and let them fly into the charcoal sky.