Traveling 1 - WfW 15/1 3rd Part

Still using the new Words for Wednesday:
    Constipation          and / or         Snot
     Rivalry                                       Beluga
     Occupation                                Emergency
     Sneeze                                       Qualify  
     Wishy-washy                             Coffee
     Diatribe                                     Butt
For this installment I used: Occupation. Still many words left. I aim to publish a chapter a day until I either save or kill off my brave couple.

  We trudged on through the dry, dusty brown landscape. We did not see anything or anybody all day. No birds, no insects, no nothing. The whole world was quiet, hot, brown down below and hazy blue above.
  The children soon tired from walking, actually we all did. We had blisters, sores and cramps before long. And it did not take long for the children to pull off their shoes. The ground was hot and the ubiquitous brown layer was soft, without sharp edges. Soon we all followed their example. Our pace was atrocious. We looked for a place to rest, but one place looked just like another, brown dunes with stumps of trees and stone and boulders. Sometimes an old dry stone wall was preserved, Often only partially, but once we walked
along a wall for a long stretch. We rested there, with out backs to the wall. We were all still numb, the children were subdued, only the baby was making loud noises. After the midday rest we trudged on. We took turns telling funny or momentous happenings from our past occupations to make the time pass faster. It slowed us down further, but we were able to go on.
  Ben told us about how once, years ago as an apprentice, he was building a house for a costumer, who then made up his mind to have it re-built in another wood. Instead of chucking all the wooden parts, Ben carefully pulled down the house, and put it up somewhere else for another customer. And number one had been angry as a wasp upon discovering the replica house. We all laughed at the man's outrage.
  Then Minna told of her one real big discovery. We all laughed at her disclosure. Her big discovery was a minute insect, encased in amber an named after her. We stopped laughing almost simultaneously as we realized that there were no more insects.
  Near evening, as the shadows grew long, we discovered that we stood at the top of a hill, all around us the terrain fell away from us in soft curves. Towards the West, in front of us lay a shallow, bowl-formed shape and behind this even more, but lower hills stretched.
  "This is high ground," Minna said.
  "It is as good as anyplace else." Ben agreed. I turned slowly to the right,
  "And I think that the dark smudge over there are the remains of a forest," I said. "I suggest, we go there, we can return here to build later, when the water rise, if it should get that high. But right now trees are a must for us. We ate a piece of cake each and trailed our travoises down the  hill, over what clearly had once been a river and uphills towards the woods again.
  We were exhausted upon reaching the edge of the forest, all the trees were deciduous and quite dead.
  But further in the forest seemed to darken, and we hoped to find some live spruce or pine trees the next day.

to be continued ...