Each bar was a two-inch square, individually wrapped in metallic foil, with pretty paper labels on top. The labels had images of Hindu goddesses printed on the front and a Hunter S. Thomson quote on the underside that read: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

“The one in the pink wrapper is dark chocolate with dried cherries. The gold wrapper is milk chocolate with honey. And Len wanted me to mention that he uses all organic ingredients.”

October looked sideways at me, playful and flirty. “There’s two. One for you and one for me.”

“We’ll see.”

“We’ll see,” she repeated, mocking my deep, humorless tone.

She smelled the bars and said, “I call the milk chocolate.”

The “Welcome” sign near the entrance to Humboldt Redwoods State Park has a John Steinbeck quote on it, something about how the trees are ambassadors of another time, but October said it felt more like a prehistoric place where time stood still.

“If a triceratops walked past me right now, it wouldn’t seem weird,” she said.

The air smelled of dirt, bark, and moss, and inside that miasma I could taste the ocean. It was in the wind that blew over the hill from the Pacific and kept the earth soft and damp under our feet.

We had decided we would hike around for a couple of hours, visit the specific trees we’d been talking about, and then find a motel where one or both of us would eat the chocolates. If all went well after they started to kick in, we’d go back out into the woods, let the magic unfold for a while, and at some point October would draw me again.

We started down the trail, and as soon as October saw the wooden platform that led to Giant Tree, she ran toward it. When she got to the tree, she stretched her arms out and said, “Nice to meet you, sir. I’ve heard so much about you from my friend over there.” Then she looked back at me and said, “Joe, he’s magnificent.”

“You look like a child next to that behemoth.”

We walked deeper into the forest, October and I both petting random, unnamed redwoods as we went along.

“Wow, look at this one,” she would say. Then we’d walk a few more feet. “And this one.”

Near Drive-Thru Tree, I asked her to turn around so I could take her picture. She stepped back into the naturally carved out tunnel that ran through the middle of the tree’s trunk, raised her arms into the air, and smiled.