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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

20 July 2006 - 23:54

desperately seeking bo peep

The river is pretty much the boundary.

Behind you, the foothills and high mountains.

Ahead?

Over 100 hundred miles of desert roads.

I was tempted to write "lonely desert roads", but just a few miles ahead I can see the long dust plume of my neighbor. Love of open, empty spaces is fairly standard in our outfit, so I wasn't that surprised when he came up after the early-ended meeting and asked about my trips home across the desert.

"How much longer would it take? Where would I come out?"

Well, I take pictures all the way, so it takes a two-hour drive and adds two to three hours more. But for him, it would actually be a shortcut over the highways. Maybe an hour and a half more?

So, as I climbed the fine new highway up the pass, I wasn't surprised to see his green truck in front of me. Nor when he came over the radio to make sure he was turning the right place. Through the old gold mine town we were tandem, with me pointing out Chuck's church, and the road into the other mining ghost town. But within an hour he had left me behind, as I snapped the image above.

Last I saw of my neighbor was his rig crossing the bridge, miles ahead, and passing the sheepherder camp across the river.

Most of the sheepherder's charges were down along the river, feasting on the thin ribbon of green. But a few were up on the hill above, apparently unwilling to leave the dry, dusty desert lands.

The lands I was entering, and would be in for the next four hours.

Three miles in, past two fences, I found this:

A lamb.

All alone.

Noticing my huge vehicle parked alongside, the poor critter got up on unsteady legs and wobbled towards me. Weak, and bleating plaintively. The newly dried umbilical cord still hanging from its belly.

No mama in sight.

No sheep in sight at all, in fact.

Craaaap.

My first thought is to snatch the little thing up. But, were that witnessed before I could explain my intentions, I could just hear the shouts and charges of "rustling".

Nope. Gonna have to leave the little thing right here, and hope it doesn't leave.

And back I go, back to the river.

Twenty minutes later I'm back at the lamb. The rancher and his herder in the truck behind me. They're moving their band up into those high mountains for the rest of the summer, and the lost lamb had apparently been born along the trail, and left behind. Watching in the mirror, I see him give me a wave as he steps out and quickly scoops up the herder's newest charge.

To go along with all those hungry bum lambs I herd bleating in his round-topped wagon.

And off into the dry and dust I go.

A fairly uneventful crossing. Occasionally slowing down for pedestrians.

The only flowers I noticed were the beeplants growing on the road, looking limp in the 90-degree heat.

Before I knew the true name of this species, I called it "dove-pea". Because of the long pods of seeds that form late in summer and attract so many mourning doves.

They seem to be producing seeds early.

But the doves didn't seem to mind.

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