This morning:

We flew.

I threw.

I knew when I arrived at the airport and found no pilot that I should leave well enough alone. Wait a decent interval, and then go home.

But no, I had to call him and wake him up. And we flew.

Let this be a small piece of advice.

When the windsock looks like this:

Stay out of airplanes. At least, small ones. Ones that are flying over broken, hilly country.

They tend to bounce.

Not quite two hours into our flight, after I had hit my head on the ceiling a second time and uttered a feeble, unenthusiastic "yee-haa" as we dropped over Cheyenne Ridge, the pilot decided that maybe that should be our last transect of the morning.

He might have reached that conclusion a transect earlier if he had noticed me filling the little sandwich bag with bile. But, as I had been sucking on raspberry candies and the bile smelled the same, he didn't know about my difficulties until after we landed.

Which was after my head contacted the ceiling two more times.

And hey, I kept my eyes looking out the window all the while my insides were everting. Making sure to spot and record and map a group of four antelope, a pair, and two singles.

A few positive things about the morning's flight:

Today, there were no mists clinging to the Breaks.

The bald eagles were right where they were supposed to be. One perched on the dead tree next to the nest tree, and the other on the nest.

And we saw lots of these birds, which local fishermen hate, but I know at least one of you loves:

And I marked two different antelope at least three-quarters of a mile out into the blue lake shown on the map.

'Cause the lake ain't there no more. In those places, it was just a skinny river surrounded by tumbleweed flats.

We need rain. Lots of rain.

Or even snow.