Hey, this is Johanna. I'm the senior producer of the show. And today we're collaborating with Off Assignment. They're a nonprofit online literary magazine. They describe themselves as having a penchant for journeys and a fascination with strangers.

Very atlacy. We kind of think of ourselves as kindred spirits. And Office Assignment has

this one column that I personally really love. It's called Letter to a Stranger. And it's sort of exactly what it sounds like. But it also,

I think, really just sort of encapsulates some of these fleeting moments that we have

when we're traveling or just sort of out and about in the world. So today we're going to share

an essay from that column. It was written by Emily Lowe,

and once again, Atlas Obscira goes off assignment. Enjoy. To the bear we didn't find.

How old was I when we followed you? Six, maybe seven.

The memory of tracking you still rises like steam through the cracks of my childhood.

It was my father's idea.

We awoke in our castle of a tent with two flaps that we zipped up to create rooms,

one for my sister and me and the other for my parents.

My father set to work on breakfast over the fire pit, feeding Fletchling flames.

I like to watch him do this.

I would sit on a log beside him and soak in the scent of morning dew and smoke while

he cracked eggs

into bags of bacon grease to boil over the fire. Then the four of us ate the salty brown

scramble that we affectionately called dirty eggs. My father, sister, and I decided to walk along the

edges of the campground to kill time while my mother read at the campsite.

We followed the river upstream to a point where it narrowed, light filtering through the canopy

of hemlocks and poplars. My father carried his daypack, already prepped with necessities,

water, first aid equipment, a slew of granola bars for whenever my sister or I complained,

...