"You looked bored, so I thought I'd stop in to visit."

I must have heard that four or five times last Sunday. From folks returning from a trip to the dump, and one passing by from Central City. All seeing me and the heeler sisters sitting alone alongside the highway, our check station signs out. Doing nothing out in the middle of nowhere. So they pull in just to talk.

They were all nice visits, and usually involved some questions on chronic wasting disease or West Nile, and I'm glad they stopped by.

But I wasn't bored.

We'd set up late, since I'd spent a little time in the morning calling my folks. Killed the first few minutes on duty giving the heelers their break, which is a tense time for me, being so close to a busy highway. Not to mention the less than sanitary conditions of the pullout. There'd been a semi parked in it when we pulled up, and as he pulled out I spied another wet spot on the edge of the asphalt.

Which I promptly shoveled over with fresh dirt.

But the sisters, after doing their own business (businesses?), both shoved their noses into a small bush at the other end of the parking area.

Oh come onnn. That's probably human! How gross can you get?

And there is always the moon to watch and photograph:

The first vehicle to pull in wasn't even a hunter. Just a young couple passing through the state, reporting two elk calves stuck inside the highway right-of-way just west of Cranner Rock.

They didn't call it that. Almost nobody knows the real name of that rock, most using the name of the historical pullout beside the rock. And it's 52 miles away, an hour back in their trip. But that's close by our state's standards. So I radio their report to a game warden I know is camped nearby in that country, and he promises to check it out.

Turns out another warden is even closer, and had the entire herd of elk cross the highway in front of him in the morning dim. He's turned back to make sure the calves get off.

First hunters out are a father/son duo, the father probably 15-20 years my senior. They're both incredibly friendly, and pleased with life as they show me their pronghorn back in the camper shell. Everything is proper, and the animal neatly skinned and cooled. The father has been hunting this area, off and on once the licenses got hard to draw, for 50 years. Losing his hair quickly now, and he wears hearing aids, too.

Proudly shows me his pipe tripod for hanging and skinning game in the field. And points out the wooden pallet the carcass is on, to lift it up off the metal truck bed and circulate air below.

Yeah, he's been doing this a while.

Apologizes that there is a trick to opening and closing the gate to the camper. But as I point out, in our winds, all camper shells end up having a trick or two to function.

I recognize the next truck to pull in long before it gets to my pullout. An old beatup blue Chevy. And that's its name, too. "Old Blue".

Have you been in one place too long when you know the names of people's trucks?

A cowboy from a local ranch. Been stopping in at my check stations since before the wife and I were married. 'Course, half the time in those days, she was on check station with me, and I think that's why he stopped by and hung around...

So he's here for over an hour, helping me check any truck that pulls in, and catching me up on local gossip and his life's plans.

I am glad I have never been in a point in my life where I had to balance living in one community at a job that provides housing, versus a job somewhere else that pays five cents more an hour but without a place to live.

Want to know what a really good wage for cowboying is these days? $2600 a month.

A crappy wage? $1200 per month.

His, of course, is somewhere in between, but that's gonna change in a couple months or less. He just doesn't know if it's going to get better, or worse.

Later, a truck pulls in from the south. I don't have signs up in that direction, because it's too damn risky to have vehicles pulling across traffic to get into my pullout. But they're Central City residents who used to live here, and they knew I'd be sitting on station.

As I finish checking his young bull elk (archery season's open), a silver sedan pulls up, also headed north. An elderly couple in the front seats. As my elk-hunting friend pulls away, the driver of the silver car apologizes for interrupting, but they have a question.

Nodding towards the wooden structures just a hundred meters west or so, he asks, "What are those things?"

Now, if you lived here, you might consider that a stupid question. But I've been asked before, so I give him a smiling answer.

They're snowfences, sir.

They'd noticed the 12-foot tall wood panels were always on the west or south sides of the highways, and I had to explain that 80-85 percent of our winter winds come from those directions. Heck, the rest of the year, too, I'm sure.

I hadn't been able to check their plates as they drove in, but in our half-hour-plus conversation, I learn they are a retired couple from Alabama. (Hence the accents.) Just driving across the country, hitting Yellowstone and Banff on their way to Sacramento.

Kind of a large detour but, hey, retirement is supposed to be fun.

They thought they were on their way to Devil's Tower, an hour away, but they were following directions to Devil's Gate, an entirely different sort of place. The Tower is at least five hours farther on. Which didn't faze their plans whatsoever.

She is terrified of steep roads, extolling about how they got trapped in a town in southwest Colorado and had no choice but to drive out on a steep highway. So I point out the roads they don't want to take to Yellowstone.

They argued between themselves, just like my folks. The arguing that neither would ever want to live without. Almost always ending with him making a large sigh of surrender, even though you could tell he knew he was right.

They'd been getting headaches, and were blaming it on the elevation and thin air. But I pointed out high-altitude sickness is almost always actually dehydration. They need to drink a lot here.

Which, of course, got us onto a discussion about rest areas, and the relative dearth of them along our highways.

And about the humidity back home. And she mentioned they had a "poo".

As I nodded my head, I tried to figure out what a "poo" was, and what it had to do with humidity. I was certain she wasn't talking about the fecal matter that critters leave laying around. I concluded she meant a cockapoo, and I could see how a long-haired dog might suffer in Alabama.

But no, I was wrong. A "poo" is a large cement hole in the backyard that you fill with water. Used for swimming. But I swear, there wasn't a hint of an "L" sound on the end of her word.

Wife stopped by after Mass, to deliver the Sunday paper and rescue the heelers from their boredom. (Which is something they desperately want, evidenced by their exploisive runs into the Explorer, and the scolding barks they throw at the wife when she leaves them there to join me in the outfit's rig.)

She probably stayed at least a half-hour, sitting just left of center next to me in the cab of the truck. About the only time in the week we have to talk and visit, but I suspect from the highway it looked like something else.

Some of the day's monotony was briefly interrupted by a passing convoy of cyclists:

Who did not stop in to visit.

Shortly after the wife left with the heelers, dispatch sent out an advisory of a motor home on fire, one to two miles north of town. On our highway.

I'm parked at milepost 1.7.

No blazing vehicles or smoke clouds that I can see. But I keep my mouth shut and radio silent, because people often mess up on mileage on our highways. And I watch as a patrolman, lights and sirens blazing, speeds by to the north. And hear his report of nothing at the reported 10-20, he's continuing north.

Followed by not one, not two, but three units from the Sheriff's Office. And a fire truck.

Then all is quiet.

A game warden stops by for a brief visit, and reports the patrol and deputies finally found the burning motorhome.

At milepost 11.

Yes, eleven. As in, nine to ten miles more than where reported.

As we compare notes on the season, the fire truck comes back in.

Five minutes later, an EMS unit is speeding north, in full alarm mode. Warden reports they have an elderly man having a heart attack at the construction zone, an hour up the highway. In a silver sports car.

I quickly review the Alabaman's vehicle in my mind. Could someone call that a sports car?

I hope not.

I am actually alone for a brief while, when the sheriff's vehicles come cruising back to town. The third pulls in. A deputy I have known for years. With questions about West Nile.

You see, the disease was recently found in sage grouse. Including one just west of here. And this fellow loves to hunt blue grouse, a close relative to the desert birds. And his wife is scared they'll pick up the virus from his kills. So we seriously discuss the disease for a while (and I give him some false information, that the boss corrected me on a day later... gonna have to call and fix that).

And then I suddenly remember where he lives. And laugh in his face.

You live along the river, man! If anyone in this county's gonna get bit by an infected mosquito, it's you! Why worry about the grouse in the mountains?

Evening is a little quieter. Actually get to finish the Sunday paper.

At 17:23 I notice there is not a cloud in the sky.

Not one. Anywhere.

Don't see that too often.

As the sun gets low in the west, one patch of ground begins to shine.

Mustard.

Dense patches of the low weeds, and their transparent seeds. I kneel down, carefully avoiding the old disposable diapers that I had failed to find when I was burying disgusting waste, and get a few photos.

While doing so, I hear a horn honk behind me. Wasn't until Monday afternoon I discover it was a federal employee, returning from a shopping trip. He remarked he was happy to see me out working, like that's a rare thing.

But what he really wanted to know is what I was doing kneeling by the fence.

But I still wasn't bored.

'Cause I've got neighbors.

Twenty doe and fawn antelope, in the pasture just across the highway.

And their attendant buck.

Which is actually kind of boring, except that on my side of the highway, we have this fellow.

The day before, I'd killed some time watching him come close to our truck (and the two dead trucks) to mark his territory. First he pawed the ground bare.

Then he pee'd on it.

And defecated on it.

His scent post. Announcing to all other pronghorn that this ground was his.

'Course, his territory was void of any does, so naturally on Sunday he was back again, looking longingly across the busy highway at the other buck's large harem.

At 18:38, the eastern buck decided he had had enough, and came charging across the highway to attack the interloper. Who wisely ran under the highway fence, and then turned to face his opponent. They sparred horns for a while, through the fence, me grabbing 15-second video clips as I could.

Oddly, the challenger won this round, the dominant buck backing quickly off to the shoulder of the road. I suspect he probably got gored by the barbs on the fence, not his enemy's horns. They sparred for another five minutes or so, darting back and forth across the highway, literally in between vehicles.

Just knew I was going to witness a collision, but they always managed to squeak through. Finally, a warden headed into town settled the whole fight with his siren, and the two combatants retired to their separate sides for the night.

The whole issue of the does still unresolved.

Me, I waited until sunset, which was kinda anticlimactic, before heading into town and home.