Jun 23, 2026 · 40 min · 10 segments
It’s 1976, and a 20-something aspiring painter, Lauren Elder, is flying over California’s Sierra Mountains to pick up a cat named Ferocious. When the plane crashes, she’s faced with a decision: stay…
Blair BravermanHost
Our story starts in 1976 in Oakland, California, with a 28-year-old woman named Lauren Elder, who wants so badly to make it as an artist, specifically a painter.
She lives in a storefront under a highway overpass with her boyfriend, Jim, who's a veterinarian, and she is struggling to make ends meet.
He's a recreational pilot, and he's gonna take a small plane and fly to Death Valley because he accidentally left his cat there during a camping trip, and he wants to go pick up the cat again.
The cat's name is Ferocious, and a woman in the desert found Ferocious going through her trash.
So Jay and his girlfriend are flying over the Sierra Mountains to pick up the cat, and they're bringing a cat crate, a cactus, and just a bunch of beer as thank you gifts for the woman who found the cat, and Lauren is invited to come along.
She really doesn't know either of them very well, but she wants to be able to see the landscape from above.
So she packs a lunch, and she goes to the little airport and meets them, and she's feeling kind of awkward, like she's been overthinking the whole thing, so she's dressed up a little too much.
She feels like, "Ugh, I've signed on, but I'm just gonna be a third wheel this whole day." Jay is a big guy.
Like, he's a six-foot-something redhead with a huge beard, and he's a veterinarian now, but he used to run a ranch.
She really strikes Lauren as kind of a, a cool, like, California surfer girl.
Our story starts in 1976 in Oakland, California, with a 28-year-old woman named Lauren Elder, who wants so badly to make it as an artist, specifically a painter.
She lives in a storefront under a highway overpass with her boyfriend, Jim, who's a veterinarian, and she is struggling to make ends meet.
He's a recreational pilot, and he's gonna take a small plane and fly to Death Valley because he accidentally left his cat there during a camping trip, and he wants to go pick up the cat again.
The cat's name is Ferocious, and a woman in the desert found Ferocious going through her trash.
So Jay and his girlfriend are flying over the Sierra Mountains to pick up the cat, and they're bringing a cat crate, a cactus, and just a bunch of beer as thank you gifts for the woman who found the cat, and Lauren is invited to come along.
She really doesn't know either of them very well, but she wants to be able to see the landscape from above.
So she packs a lunch, and she goes to the little airport and meets them, and she's feeling kind of awkward, like she's been overthinking the whole thing, so she's dressed up a little too much.
She feels like, "Ugh, I've signed on, but I'm just gonna be a third wheel this whole day." Jay is a big guy.
Like, he's a six-foot-something redhead with a huge beard, and he's a veterinarian now, but he used to run a ranch.
She really strikes Lauren as kind of a, a cool, like, California surfer girl.
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