Looking back on it, it's kind of hard to believe that most of today was spent in a meeting. The annual meeting to plan the fall hunting season schedules.

Meeting was supposed to start at 0900 in Regional Town, over two hours away. And we've had construction delays at the Gap all summer long. Folks complaining of up to an hour in delays, although the most I've had to deal with was about 20 minutes. But just to be safe, I left an hour earlier than normal, at 05:45.

Before sunrise, in fact. Something I got to enjoy in the miles north of town.

While at the same time enjoying the setting moon on the west horizon.

While taking these shots, I could see the headlights of another vehicle, southbound, about a mile ahead of me. Also stopped on the shoulder, presumably enjoying the same celestial show as I.

I was wrong. When I got to where they had stopped, I found yet another surprise.

Two bull elk, both peacefully grazing just a couple hundred meters off the highway. A long ways away from anywhere, and totally unconcerned about anything, except stuffing their faces.

But even with these delays, I was only about ten minutes behind schedule.

Until I got here.

This isn't actually the construction that delayed me the most. That was seven miles earlier. But they have the road nearly demolished, and equipment and crews running around all over.

Here, at the third of three consecutive construction sites (literally... no space between them), the workers weren't doin' nothin'! Except trying to repair the asphalt laying machine. Yet we sat there over 20 minutes, watching the steam-roller guy sort through his pack for a snack, while the others crawled on the machine that was not in our way.

I seriously, seriously wondered if I could get into legal trouble by taking out a rifle and using the flagger's sign as a target. To try to get the "Stop" to spin around to "Slow".

I noticed he wouldn't look at any of the drivers as he finally let us pass their non-construction.

Anyway, after giving myself an extra hour and a quarter to get to Regional Town, I managed to walk into the meeting room one minute before nine o'clock.

First item of business was presentation of this:

Now this little award is significant for two reasons.

First, and leastmost, is that someone would even make such a thing. And that it would be so terribly appropriate for the deed for which the award was granted.

Where does one find such a thing?

Wall Drug.

You can find everything at Wall Drug.

But the story... well, I shouldn't tell it, since it isn't mine to tell, but here's the synopsis.

It involved a game warden. And a duck.

A ring-billed duck.

And, as we all know, ringbills are cavity nesters. That is, they find long, hollow cavities to enter and build their nests in.

Like pipes.

Like the vent pipes you find in, of, say, an outhouse.

Yup.

Duck entered the pipe, and soon found it was a oneway trip.

Into the crapper. And the crap, so to speak.

Got to spend the night there, too, due to some bureaucratic misunderstandings about whose responsibility the problem belonged to. The outfit responsible for the duck, or the one responsible for the outhouse.

In the end, the duck outfit arrived first. To a campground full of concerned campers. And a duck hiding in the furthest corner of the pit.

As in, the only way to even see the duck was to open the back service door, where they pump the, uh, refuse out, and then enter, headfirst, down to the shoulders.

Then, and only then, could one see the duck. In order to snare it with the noose pole.

Which, naturally, was too long to fit properly, and would first have to be forced down into the, uh, muck, in order to pass through the door.

But that didn't really matter because, as you all know, ringbills are also diving ducks.

As in diving ducks. As in, when scared, they instinctively dive.

Yep, down into the, uh, muck. And then back up again, to shake itself "clean". Dispersing a fine mist of the effluent.

Repeatedly.

But the episode had a happy ending. In the end, both the duck and the warden waded straight into the nearby lake, and fully immersed themselves.

And hence the award.

Learned another important fact for those of you considering an outdoor career. It seems, from one person's personal experience, that the entry level job for the US Forest Service is "cone knocker".

You see, in our arid climate, the solid materials that fall into these duck traps tend to pile up in the middle, in a cone of, well, crap. Which is too tall and dense to be sucked out by maintenance.

So someone has to get the job of knocking said crap cones down back into the muck.

The new guy.

Just a word to the wise.

Although it seemed to go well, it was a long meeting. Got notes, but this entry is too long already. Suffice to say, there was another good double-ruby moment.

Took about an hour off on the drive home, hiking after my latest quarry.

But en route, stumbled across this guy.

Now this may very well be the largest horny toad I've seen in our state (although we grew them much larger back home). Certainly the darkest. And fairly easy to catch, since he was in evening shadow already and probably cooling down.

Didn't want to deal with construction again on the drive home, and by the packs of vehicles I was meeting, I knew they were still active. And the great spacing between packs told me the delays would probably be just as bad as in the morning. So I took the desert route home.

Quite surprised, and disappointed, at all the traffic on the main desert road. Coalbed methane. Which also explained all the camp trailers in Home on the Range. They have beat the road into a talcum powder dust, several inches deep.

With the late meeting, the hour of exercise and the detour, I was only halfway across the desert when the day ended.

But it was an ending worth seeing.