Apparently by 'later this week' he meant today. Today, and right now. He got the ox, Boot, ready. Boot wasn't for riding, she was for holding stuff. Mostly rocks, thanks to dad.

I had told dad we would need to bring some food since it was decently far away, and he replied with "I've never needed food before, goin' here." That was the answer I didn't want. There were a lot of different answers I didn't want, but that one felt pretty high on the list.

So we didn't pack any food, and we were now just trudging through an old gorge with an ox named after footwear. This wasn't far off from what I was expecting from my dad.

"Son-" He started, hitting me with his barely-used cane. "Stop being distracted! You gotta' help yer' old man find some mysterious rocks!"

I sighed, following my dad, who was almost skipping with excitement. I'm happy he was happy though. That was important to me. Even if it was through him getting obsessed with some weird and unreasonable paranormal and abnormalities. Honestly, it didn't matter. Well, it kind of did. I'll ignore it for now, though.

 "Dad," I started, "What do the rocks look like?" 

 "You'll know them when you see them!" Was his answer. 

 I sighed and kept walking alongside Boot, stroking her fur. She was calm, like usual. She must have been used to going through the gorge. 

 Dad was busy staring at the walls of said gorge, his eyes illuminating with joy, similar to a child on Christmas morning. Oh boy.

 "These are them!" He cried. After he threw his cane up, hooking it onto the rock wall, and he then proceeded to pull himself up.

 "Whoa- whoa- whoa! Dad! Stop! You're going to kill yourself!"

 "No, I won't, Rog! I've done this a thousand times."

 That both helped calm me down and terrified me at the same time. So, he had practice doing this, meaning he wouldn't die... I hope. But he had done this many times, meaning he had almost killed himself every time he came to this damn gorge. I grabbed my head, cringing. 

 "Dad! Don't do this! You'll get yourself killed!" Was what I wanted to say. Instead, I settled with, "Just be careful." 

 I made sure that while he was climbing, I was standing as close as possible to catch the old fart. Boot seemed to be taking a nap during this.

 Dad eventually turned back, screaming, "I got one!" And he jumped off the ledge, landing on his feet. Oh god, I think I had a heart attack watching that.

 "Look at this, Son!"

 He flashed a purple rock with speckles on it. Pretty, but useless.

 "Wow!" I pretended to be excited anyway, "It's gorgeous!" That part was true.

 "Now we just need to find 27 more!"

 Oh, for the love of all that is holy and sacred please let this be a cruel joke!