Thursday was the long drive to regional town, with one of my new game wardens (I have two, now). This one doesn't view taking photographs as a frivolous waste of time.

In fact, as he rode along with me for the first time last August, he raised no complaints as I drove into a rock-hard stop in the sagebrush to avoid running over a horny toad. Nor when I proceeded to jump out and take pictures of said cute, unflattened reptile.

He even borrowed my camera to take a few shots of his own.

So Thursday, as we dropped off the Divide into the desert basin filled with patches of morning fog, he was unprotesting as I stopped to take a couple shots of the dawn. Even suggested a place to miss most of the powerlines.

But no, he hadn't seen this view behind us, until I pointed it out.