Cold this morning.

Not as cold as yesterday, which registered at 26 degrees when we set up check station. And rose to a balmy 28 degrees three hours later. Had ice sloshing around in the jug I used to wash my hands all day. No, today was a toasty 38 degrees just after sunrise, a point I made to the check-out gal at the convenience store as I paid for my chocolate chip chocolate muffin.

But today had wind. Enough I had to batten down all the CWD sampling gear. Some definitely considered it to be cold.

Certainly nothing like the previous week, where we set record highs for seven days straight. Some days besting old records by almost five degrees.

And it was a slow morning. Thought it might be busy, as my first visitor showed up within minutes of our arrival. A fellow waiting for the gate to the dump to be unlocked. With a question.

Should he turn in a couple guys on 4-wheelers that sawed the antlers off a decaying bull elk carcass, an apparent cripple loss from the earlier bull season, during the cow season?

'Course, it seems this hunter's friend had been hiking up the hill with a saw to do just exactly the same thing, and got perturbed that the other guys with ATVs got there first.

So what I really want to know is, would he have turned in his friend for the same crime, had he committed it before the ATV folks got there? But I don't ask.

Yeah, technically what they did was illegal. Game warden would want to know. Relay the phone number, and off he goes, his duty clear.

Then it was...

Nobody.

Nobody for over two hours.

At 10:29, I decided this was ridiculous, and poured the second cup of coffee.

Almost immediately, a truck came over the rise. I quickly took a sip of hot coffee, knowing the First Rule of check stations would guarantee the rest of the cup would be cold by the time I got back to it. The truck pulled in all right, parking beside me at 10:31.

Young man gets out and greats me as Mr. Grouse. "Do you remember me?"

Nope. Refresh my memory.

Recognize the name immediately, but he went on just the same, explaining he used to be our paper boy. Over a decade ago. He's grown well, with a good gas field job. One of the folks driving around with the radiation stickers on their truck.

He seems surprised I know about americium, and how they use it.

Yeah, I've handled that stuff. Plutonium, too.

And they've got two deer in the truck. From one of my herds.

CWD samples!

'Course, her buck is a good one, and she wants to mount it. So he offers to cape it right there, so I can then carve into the neck.

Before I can put away the first lymph sample, another truck pulls in. With two elk. From my area.

More necks to cut.

Was 11:35 when I got back to the coffee.

It was cold, of course.

Air temperature was down, to 37 degrees.

But it was a slow day, just the same. Wife rescued the bored heelers after church, and we got to say our good-byes. (She's in Capitol City right now, for training session all day tomorrow. Plan is for me to be there by noon, so's we can share lunch at her favorite Chinese restaurant in that city.)

Clouds broke late in the afternoon, giving a few patches of blue. Wind died down. The guy who went into the field west of me with a truck load of poles came out with a truck load of split firewood. The gal who takes the hike from the gate to the base of the Divide every Sunday afternoon with her dog did it again today.

Me, I checked 11 critters. Not counting at least an equal number from the northern parts of the state that had already been checked, including one truck with a respectable mule deer rack nested inside a good elk rack, in front of a great set of moose antlers. They complained it only took them a day and a half, and now they had to go home. If my home was California, I'd complain about going back, too.

And then sunset came. Looked to be impressive, so I started snapping shots when the clouds were just tinged with yellow.

'Cause you know some hunter's gonna show up just when it gets good.

But nobody did.

Even got a brief appearance of a sundog or partial rainbow towards Elk Mountain.

When the colours finally darkened and the show ended, uninterrupted, I shut down the station, leaving the young gal in her 4-county car to make her cell call in peace.

And got another shot of sunset as I pulled into town.

That should have been that, but lo and behold, the sun found one last gap in the clouds as I left the gas pumps.

Now, it's to bed. Got the drive to the Capitol tomorrow morning. With a stop at the lab with a cooler of lymph nodes.

And there's benchmarks along the way, of course.