It began with my mom showing me an overhead satellite view of a forested landscape.  She seemed excited and enthused by the recent discovery of a source of light detected in a particular area.  The reason this was so remarkable was because the area was an island around Antarctica that was believed to have been completely uninhibited.  Suddenly the map zoomed out and became more of a digital image rather than a satellite photo, and a guy began explaining something about it, giving some relevant facts.  One of the details was that it was 300 miles away from the nearest known settlement or outpost.  The thing that became a mystery for me was that this part of the world was appearing as a green forest and not under year-round snow and ice.  Was this a seasonal phenomenon, or was there a more exotic revelation, like a scientific conspiracy to perpetuate the belief in it being barren and uninhabitable, designed to hide the truth of it being quite the desirable spot?  There was no time for dwelling, however, as my mom quickly took over the controls of the image software; she focused on one particular spot and showed me the single white speck and said that it was likely caused by a typical flashlight.  That was interesting; my mind started conjuring a guess about some backpackers or backcountry trekkers who made an epic trip.  Then my mom did the ultra zoom-in view, and suddenly the image was blown up, slightly pixelated, but it contained enough detail to see what appeared to be glowing orange embers suspended in the air around a campfire.  Sure enough, there was a human figure sitting by the fire.  So I thought, OK that settles it, the light source was no longer an unknown.

Then before I had another thought about it, the two of us were there physically at the location.  There was that single person sitting by the fire, a 30-something woman with a ponytail, wearing typical outdoor hiking/camping clothes, sitting in a relaxed, hands-back, reclined position; she seemed to be in a basking pose with her face tilted upward, and oddly remained completely still like a photograph.  But then there were about a dozen or so other people scampering and scurrying about in the vicinity.  I only got a good look at one particular guy.  He seemed to be wearing normal casual clothes; the only distinctive thing about him was the apparent indigenous east-Asian islander ethnicity, with perfectly horizontal chopped hair across his forehead.  Then my mom went off to do some investigating.  I followed her about 50 feet behind.  She went into a field that had tall dry plant material, like a corn field.  There was a narrow path through the vegetation, but I called for her to not get too far away– I didn’t want to risk getting lost or separated on such a distant and remote excursion.  She acknowledged the merit in the suggestion to stay closer together.  She then turned to the right and went through a wooden fence.  Up until this point it seemed like we were on open, perhaps public land, but now this area seemed like someone’s backyard– it was private.  This was interesting because it implied that this area had become someone’s permanent residence.  It caused me to consider maybe there was a suitable year-round climate here.  I closed the gap to her and noted that it seemed we were in a private area, so we probably ought not to stay too long, make our presence felt, etc, as we had no idea about the resident’s view on trespassing.  I never got a great perspective on the structure of the residence; it seemed like it was just an inference based on the obvious detail and deliberate care of the landscaping.

Then there was a transition to being inside of the house I grew up in, in South Pasadena, CA.  My mom apparently had ordered some Mexican-American fast food, like Qdoba or Baja Fresh.  At first I thought it would be one entrée per person, but then I realized as I counted two burritos there wasn’t enough food to satisfy that ratio with six people.  It was my mom, dad, sister, our neighbors Mr. DeLorenzo and Mrs. Patterson, and myself.  It was mildly frustrating to discover that the burrito I was eyeing would only be good for a bite or two, considering how hungry I was at the time.  I decided that in order for everyone else to get a larger relative portion, I would pass on the burritos altogether.  Instead I opted to eat some seasoned potatoes that were cubed and in a white cream sauce.  I recall eating a good portion, then standing up to rinse my plate at the sink.  I noticed that some of the sauce had hardened and stuck to the plate; I guess there was some cheese in it.

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