Morning, John.

Speaking of   marriage stuff, Katherine and I recently went out of town to celebrate her birthday. And just a little bit before that, I had a big birthday party.

We haven't done a lot of big birthday stuff over the last few years, but then last year,  for Katherine's birthday, I got my chemo port placed,  so it felt like maybe we  should do some celebrating. This is a secret,  but eventually birthdays stop being about celebrating the fact that you were born,  and they start being about celebrating the fact that you're not dead yet. Our little vacation was very fun, but it was also, as you say, it was ours.

So, like, I wasn't thinking a lot about content the whole time. One of the things that we did  while were traveling is we  saw some old friends from,  like, grad school era who we  haven't seen in a long time. And while were hanging out, I, you know,  people came up several times to take pictures or just to say hi, and that's great.

But at the end of it, they were like, oh, Hank's like, famous, famous. And I think some point in the last few years, like, that did happen. And being famous is weird, especially when people are always like,  oh, how are you doing?

Because, like, they saw a video a year ago,  and they haven't seen any since, so they don't know if I'm okay. And look, I also don't know if I'm okay, but as far as I know, I am okay. Anyway, being famous is weird, but oddly enough, it's not the weirdest thing that I am, like,  being one of the two guys who's built, like, this maniacally powerful secret society.

Weirder. It's not a secret secret-society. Like, anybody can join up,  but most people choose not to because most people aren't like this.

That job is much more quiet, and most people don't know about it.  And it is also weirder than being, like, that science guy from TikTok. But I also have this other job that is also weird,  which is that I'm just, like, a guy with a child and a marriage. I know it's not weird in  that most people don't do it,  but it is weird.

And that, like, I have these people who I share my life with. Like, one day I met a girl at college, and now our genes are in the same child. Oftentimes, I want to be that guy.

I want to live that life. However, at one particular moment, a thing occurred,  and I did find myself suddenly in the process of making a YouTube video. Like, it's.

It's in there. You know, it's ingrained.  But it's a weird YouTube video, and it's a short video,  so I'm gonna put it in the middle of this other YouTube video. So here it is, for the very first time,  a Vlogbrothers video inside  of a Vlogbrothers video.

Good morning, John. We're going to the erratic rock.  Katherine: This erratic rock  is from where we're from.

Hank: It's from where we're from Katherine: Glacial Lake Missoula. 

Hank: This is where Christmas trees come from. Sounds like I was being facetious,   but it actually is. Why would you need a picnic table  when there's a rock? You have a child.

You have a child. You must be so proud. All right, Katherine.

How'd this rock get here? Katherine: Many years ago, there was a rock. It was just minding its own business.

The Rocky Mountains, generally.  I don't know if you've heard of this, but there are some glacier stuff.  And because of the way the landscape was, a bunch of dams built up in the Rocky mountains.  Yeah. Of ice. Then those dams got breached.

Everything that was behind the dam  went flying out of it real fast. Cataclysmic.  And anything that was in the way or, like, in the water stuck in the ice.

Hank: Yeah. All the big punks of ice Katherine: Got pushed out towards the, what is called the Pacific Ocean now.  Yeah. Along the way, stuff fell out  and just got stuck places. So you find these kind of rocks all over that. 

Hank: And this is a very large glacial erratic. Katherine: This is a large glacial erratic.  That is why it is called the erratic rock.

Hank: That's a smaller glacial erratic,   but still a big one. There aren't rocks like this here.  When they started to find rocks like this here,  they were like, what the heck happened? Katherine: How did that get here? 

Hank: And that's how they started to build the story of these giant ice dams.  Sometimes we talk about theories in terms of proof for them,  but actually what it is to what extent theory explains things  Katherine: that we see

Hank: that we are confused by. Katherine: That's true.  Is that for me? Katherine: You can have some of it, for sure. I would love some.

That's the road were   on when were like, this is erratic rock. Katherine: Quick, quick turn. Following with ten times the combined a annual volume of all the earth's rivers.

John, that was the erratic rock. I'll see you on Tuesday. One thing that I don't hear discussed often  in the context of the Lake  Missoula floods is that,  like, there were people in North  America when that happened,  and, like, we don't have, like, proof of this.

But there were also people in the places where the flood went,  and the floods would not have left anyone like they would not have left trees,  they would not have left grass. These floods would have at times traveled over 80, delivered more energy than 10,000 atomic bombs.  I generally find myself of the opinion that, like, the apocalypse has not happened,  but it happened for them, simply like an instantaneous  winking out of everything that was there, caused by nothing more than a fluke of geology. And our memorials to that loss are consigned to roadside curiosities visited every once  in a while by a couple of  people with a birthday cake.

Time heals all wounds, I guess, but usually just through forgetting. John, I'll see you on Tuesday.