The mood is fairly prosaic through accounts of what followed. Emphasis lay on logistics, on the physical safety of an inexperienced crew, on the management of vessels and the refinement of rules by which missions were best conducted. Indeed, it was specifically from this Mission Into Time that a good many of Ron’s now famous mission policies were derived, including the use of clay models to represent prospective sites. As further word on those clay representations, readers should understand the device was both unique and, frankly, ingenious. For in addition to providing survey parties with a lay of the land before actually setting out, the models served as a tangible verification of the sites. That is, did the LRH clay model—sculpted, we must remember, without aid of maps or visuals—in fact correspond to what survey parties found? As an ancillary word, it might also be noted that survey parties would tell of repeatedly returning to the Avon River for a second and third study of those clay models or until, at last, the actual landscape began to assume a recognizable form.

Meanwhile in a typically workaday fashion, Ron would continue to tell of, “writing up an area, never having been into it in this lifetime, saying exactly what the score was with regard to that area and then sending out parties to see if they could exactly locate and estimate whether or not these recalls were exactly correct.” While as yet another note on logistics, it might be added that those survey teams would generally launch in small sail craft from the Avon River or set out with the Enchanter—which, in turn, required a skill of seamanship in short supply, and thus Ron’s continual attention to nautical matters to ensure all parties, as he quipped, “carry on our happy, nautical way and return back from where we came all in one piece.” Yet even the most perfunctory description of proceedings does not fail to evoke something wondrous.