I left the River Town public library a little after ten-thirty at night.

It is something like 53 miles of highway from there to Home on the Range. And in that drive, I saw one, I repeat, one vehicle.

Kinda empty miles.

Then it's almost 25 miles of dirt road to the strutting ground where I usually spend the night. Only I didn't make it. That high country by the divide has just recently melted off all the snow from the Saint Patrick's Day blizzard, and the soils were saturated. Tires were sinking into the sandy road when I came across the first large puddle across the road, and discretion suggested that maybe I should turn around and find another bunch of birds to sleep with.

So farther south I went.

Incredibly enough, I passed a semi out there in the desert, around midnight, presumably heading back for another load of pipe for a drilling rig.

Now, the Hadsell Crossing lek is easy to find in daylight, since the birds strut just off the two-track road.

But it is a moonless, dark night. Nobody is strutting tonight. And I can't see anything except for what's in the headlights. Which all looks the same. Sage, sage and more sage.

So I park at my best guess of where the lek is, and start shifting things around to make a bed.

And look at the GPS on my dash.

Hey! Modern technology! I know where I am. Or at least, that machine does. And better still, my planner has the coordinates for the lek I'm looking for.

I compare where I am to where I want to be. I'm 100 meters north, and 30 meters east.

Pretty good guess. This'll do.

It's unusually warm out there tonight. The bank thermometer in River Town said 52 degrees when I left town, which is incredible for a night in early April. Truck thermometer says it is still 47 degrees when I finally bed down at almost one o'clock in the morning.

The stars are incredible. Even in our thinly populated state, our towns have too much light pollution to see them all. But not out here. The swath of the Milky Way, stars everywhere.

Except on the south and southwest horizons. Creeping glows from the gas fields are starting to intrude there.

So I finish my bed.

This cab feels narrower than the old truck, although there is a little more room down by the steering wheel. I opted for the lighter heelers' sleeping bag, rather than hassling with digging out the heavy, winter bag.

But the worst of it?

The bucket-style passenger seat. The side-conforming curve that feels so good when you're sitting up presses into your back like an iron bar after an hour or so. Constantly flipping over.

At 04:00, I awoke. Still totally dark, but I have to pee. Thank goodness I remembered my "Marine Latrine", a name I have learned for the plastic bottles I use on check station. No need to step out in the night air, which is now quite cold.

And it's quiet. Nobody strutting yet.

Wake again at 05:15. And hear strutting from the southeast. But this is all I can see.

A half hour later, I wake again. And it is a different world.

Best of all, I can see grouse.

I sit up, still snuggled in my warm sleeping bag, and count 11 cocks on the closest center. And another 16 cocks on the other clearing just to the south.

Slip on the cold boots, a quick pee break and a package of hot oatmeal (You put the hot water in the packet with the cereal so you don't need a bowl. Warms the hands, too.) and I'm on my way to the next strutting ground.

And home before nine o'clock. Plenty of time to get ready for the ten o'clock meeting.

Which was followed by the one o'clock meeting.