The first day of check station duty for 2005.

0715 - Load check station signs into the truck.

0722 - Left home.

0754 - Set up check station.

0800 - Fresh roadkilled mule deer buck between my sign spots on the highway. Drag out the collection kit and cut its throat and pull out retropharyngeal lymph nodes for CWD samples. Then the first chore on check station is cleaning the scalpel handle.

0840 - First hunter out, first antelope to check.

0931 - First dragonfly passes by on its migration south.

0939 - Check station duty is boring.

0950 - Car comes down the highway and pulls a u-turn at my exit. Youngest son climbs out. No, wait, that isn't youngest son. But a young man of the same age, same tall, thin build, and the same long, ponytailed, red hair. Car leaves on down the highway as redhead begins unzipping his pants. Not the crotch, but the pantlegs, changing his pants into hiking shorts. Then a change of shirt, a shifting of water bottles, hoisting the pack onto his back, and he's off, with a smile and a wave, into the desert. Hiking the Continental Divide trail, no doubt. Isn't that kinda cheating to hitch a ride along the highway?

~1010 - Owner of the local, but now defunct, towing service comes by, enjoying the first weekend of his retirement. Feels strange, he was new in the business when I got here. Have used their service more times than I would like.

1016 - Hiker is still hiking.

1017 - Truck comes out of the desert. Man reports he hasn't been hunting, just flying. And shows his model plane in the back. Goes 25 miles out into the desert so his hobby won't bother anyone, and his plane won't hit trees or powerlines.

1018 - Check station work is boring.

1032 - Hiker is still hiking, at least three miles out now.

1042 - Husband and wife pull in off the highway, coming out from town. Just to say "'Hi.' They're heading out along the old military trail and hunting grounds, looking for old spent gun cartridges.

1202 - A convoy of three SUVs comes out of the desert. Know who they are before they get here. Falconers. Out hunting sage grouse in their early season. One has been coming through on this weekend for quite a few years, although he's changed home states. The second is a local female falconer who's also been through before, with her gyr-peregrine hybrid. The third vehicle has a father/son team from my home town. More my Dad's home town, actually, before it became a town. They've brought three hybrid falcons, and never hunted here before. Suspect they'll be back. Their net total? Three grouse for four hunters, one less than their limit. (They come back in the evening to try for that fourth grouse.)

1233 - One of the local ranchers stops by. Out working his wells, trying to keep water for his stock. Been a full-time occupation the past two months, everything is so hot and dry.

???? - SUV from Nebraska stops by, jammed full of people. Driver has an elk license for the desert, and is using the weekend to scout. We've already visited a loooong time on the phone, and now we have another loooong visit. He'd be happiest if I just told him exactly where an elk is going to be so he can shoot it. I suggest an alternate, looping plan to their day's route. Gets them in where they'll see feral horses, which pleases the women in the outfit.

1413 - Woman comes out on a supply run to town. Her and her son's antelope are already in camp.

1423 - A tiny SUV comes off the highway, literally full wall to wall with five large human beings. Their gear is packed around them so it looks like they were poured into molds. They're headed into the desert to look for feral horses. Not planning to come back out this way, so I don't know if they made it.

???? - A New Jersey truck comes out, stopping suspiciously about a mile from my check station. Usually a sign of someone doing their paperwork on an antelope they were trying to smuggle out. Father and son, but they're empty-handed. They say they were glassing an antelope just down the road, but I suspect the son had been getting a driving lesson (illegally, but we all did it) on this remote road, and they were just switching drivers when they got close to the highway.

1650 - Bored, I'm glassing along the highway when I notice a pickup wandering around on the other side of the highway, where the antelope season is not open. Heat waves are rough, and it's not quite two miles away, but I get a general vehicle description. I see the dust plume of at least one gunshot hitting the ground, but there's no antelope anywhere near. But they are in a prairie dog town. So they're probably legal. An hour later I hear at least one large caliber shot from their direction.

1700 - A small station wagon barely rolls into the station from the highway, hissing and jerking. Know the woman from our youth group (a brother that didn't last). Man is small, wiry, extremely bad teeth, lots of tattoos, but friendly. Part of the brood of five kids that bail out of the car are his, part hers. Can't tell which is which. They're coming from a mall trip in Central City. Maybe shoulda bought some radiator fluid. We slowly pour my entire water reserve into their radiator, the five kids running amok all the time, or standing right next to the spurting valve. To get them amused, man suggests they throw rocks at the gov't road sign. Which they do, hitting and marking the sign. Man and woman are oblivious. These kids even, literally, tear the road apart. Ripping off chunks of asphalt off the edge and piling it up in the road. She laughingly mentions his wife (not ex-wife) called while they were in the mall, wanting to know where he was, and where her kids were. The desert is suddenly so peaceful and serene when we finally get them loaded up and running up the highway again.

1735 - Man in an Oklahoma truck stops by, with questions on licenses. Is one needed for coyotes (no), how much for fishing, how much for elk? A new resident in our gas fields, I suspect he won't wait the obligatory year before buying resident licenses.

1740 - Truck pulls in with four young men from town, one a former member of our youth group. Questions on a lost antelope license. Their rig is loaded with two ATVs and lots of firearms. Bored young men with too much time and too much easy money.

???? - Our ex-Marine hermit stops by, with a butchered beef calf in the back of his flatbed. Makes sure I read the hand-written note from the rancher up the road, declaring the calf was killed because of a bumleg and given to the Marine. In three days he'll be sober for five years.

17:15 - One of the Highway Patrolmen has stopped by to visit when a semi-truck pulls over and stops at the junction with my road. These drivers, probably slightly under the influence of highway hypnosis, occassionally see my "Check Station" signs (which clearly state, twice, that it's for game & fish) and pull in expecting a commercial traffic stop. Guess having a patrolcar at the station probably reinforces that misconception. As the truck comes to a full stop, I look down at the patrolman and announce "I think this one's yours." Patrolman drives out to visit with the trucker, sending him on his way. Comes back chuckling.

"I told him, 'Unless you've got a deer or antelope on board, you don't have to stop.' And the man tells me he does have a deer on board. Driver's last name is "Deer."

1923 - Dusk. Soon I'll be out of here (the wife came to rescue the heelers hours ago). I've had two outfits of hunters express surprise that they saw a man walking across the desert. The lanky redhead is making good time.