As we headed north from town this morning, I spotted a buck antelope off on the right, standing on the crest of the ridge. The sun had not yet come up, so the sky behind him was orangish grey while he had that reddish alpine-glow. The Ferris Mountains off in the distance were a flat grey-blue.

If he didn't move, our movement would soon get him lined up in front of the blue peaks. Gorgeous picture, a glowing red and pink buck antelope standing silhouetted in front of blue mountains with a greyish-orange background sky.

And that's how it came out. No picture, of course, (I was driving, and the heelers don't know squat about photography), but a good way to start the morning.

Once again the construction crew was out working on the highway before we were (contract time running out, guys?), so we had a short wait before getting off the asphalt. Our route this morning took us into the dunes, most of which have been stabilized by vegetation (sagebrush and rabbitbrush) for a long, long time.

We were probably on our tenth antelope group or so when I first smelled it. Burning brush. The sky was hazy, so I assumed we had a wildfire somewhere upwind.

Next stop, and there is was again. Something burning.

Better check.

Well, we weren't on fire, but there was a half ton of yellow rabbitbrush blossoms jammed up between the skidplates and the hotter parts of the truck. So the sisters got a break while I got gloves and the piece of rebar that I keep handy for just these occassions, and cleaned out debris.

Had to do this once with a warden's truck, when it caught fire on the highway. Laying under a hot truck knocking burning brush and leaves off the catalytic converter. (His knees were bad, hence I'm the one underneath trying to save his truck.)

And noticed fluid streaming down onto the asphalt.

Gasoline.

The fire had melted the fuel line.

I was laying underneath a burning truck that's dripping gasoline.

It occurred to me that this could be unhealthy.

But letting it burn wasn't safe, either. One of our bosses lost his truck to burning sage underneath, and it set off all the ammo he kept stored in the truck. Hardly a safe proposition.

So I stayed under the truck. The warden was kind enough to hand me the fire extinguisher. Guess this was serious enough for real fire control. And I'm still here.

But anyway, no fire today.

Our route hooks up into the true dunes, most barely covered with a scab of green. With the drought, the sands are dry this year.

You have to run aggressive tires in this country. Many two tracks get rutted up when wet, and the only way to get through without getting high-centered is to have tires with deep, cutting tread that will climb up out of the ruts.

But tires with this tread also dig down in dry sand.

This can be bad.

The quote from my field notes:

0821 - sandbogged! dig; lay sage, dig track down to pack

We weren't technically stuck. The tires were only sunk halfway down into the sand, and the carriage was well above the ground still. But we couldn't go forward or backward (unless I shifted into 4W Low, and that would've just buried the tires).

So the heelers explored while I buried dead sagebrush in front and behind of all four wheels. Hit wet, packed sand about 6-8" down, so I got out the scoop shovel (usually only used in winter) and cleared down to the wet for about a truck length and a half.

Like shoveling snow, only it's hotter and heavier.

0845 - out

So it worked.

'Course the country ahead would be worse, so we had to turn around. Took some cross-country travel (the tires will be full of cactus stickers for that), but we got it done.

Oh, yeah.

Got to freak out the flagger at the construction. Our route enters the highway within the project, so I ended up coming out of the construction right after the pilot car and convoy went in.

She wasn't expecting that.