A couple of hours later, you groan in frustration. The cut-through proved to be elusive. Make that nonexistent. Sheer sandstone cliffs rise in front of you and on both sides. You'll have to retrace your route several miles out of this canyon and then follow the main river back to the big lake. "Nothing takes so long as a shortcut."
"We can still make it by noon," Brett says.
"Good thing." One way or another, you intend to be there when the time window is supposed to open. You need to see those shimmering orange lights appearing precisely as predicted by the temporal equations. You turn around and drive off like a…well, not quite like the proverbial bat out of hell, but perhaps like a mammal out of a theropod's clutches.
At 11:53 a.m., the launch site comes into view with the blue lake behind it. You dodge a sequoia with a diameter twice the length of your Land Rover and splash across the little stream at the shallow ford, pausing a few yards farther on to scrutinize the remnants of the pterosaurs' nest. Scavengers haven't left anything worth noting.
Brett cranes her neck to take in the Cretaceous sky. "Not a pterosaur in sight. Nor any troodontids."
"Excellent." You cautiously maneuver the Way Way Wayback Machine into the exact center of the abandoned nest. At this pivotal moment before switching to time-travel mode and engaging the flux navigator, before the distinctive orange shimmer envelops the Land Rover, what do you do?