I can’t miss this, I thought. A number like this only happens once in a car’s lifetime. These miles were all my miles. All in my 2013 Toyota Rav4 work car.

I did the math in my head. If I went to Death Valley once a month for five years, that would be sixty months. At four-hundred miles a trip, that’s twenty-four thousand miles, at least, in Death Valley trips. It’s fitting then, that this milestone happened on a day trip to Scotty’s Castle at the north end of Death Valley.

As I waited, my mind wandered to the past. The summer of 1995, to be specific.

“Jerry, you will have a Japanese student. He speaks no English,” said Caroline, the program director of the Glen Helen Outdoor Education Center.

“Okay,” I said, “This will be different.”

The group and I hiked around the Glen every day for a week. And on every hike, I worked to break through the language barrier between Ichiro and me. He understood some English words but, Caroline was right, spoke nothing. “Would you teach me how to count one through ten?” I asked. Ichiro nodded.

One evening we went on a night hike. All of the instructors gathered with their groups around a fire and the outdoor stage. Two of the instructors got up with leather gloves and owls, a Barred and a Great Horned, and gave a talk about the night and all the things the students might see while they walk.

“Owls have large eyes compared to their body size,” one of the instructors said. “So large, that if humans had the same body size to eye size ratio, our eyes would be as big as grapefruit.”

After the talk, we went out under the stars without flashlights. “Your eyes will adapt to the limited light,” I said. “Your nose will work better because the night air has more moisture making scents more intense.”

“That’s why your dog’s nose is wet, isn’t it?” said one of the kids.

“That’s exactly why your dog’s nose is wet,” I said. As we talked and walked, the unmistakable scent of the striped skunk wafted across the group. I stopped. “Do you smell that?” I asked.

“Skunk-eh,” said my Japanese friend.

“That’s right, Ichiro, it is a skunk,” I said, then added, “ich, ne, son, shi, go, rocku, hatch, coo, ju,” with a smile.

“You missed seven,” he replied, with a smile.