Either my mornings are too full, or I take too many photographs, or I just don't remember how to edit. But the past week is full of entries stored away in the "private" directory. Neat images, and events, just too many to write down. (Or I'm too busy helping the wife's sinus headaches with some velvet tipping therapy.)

Files and files of empty promises.

So, just to get something down for today, here's my drive to the desert this morning.

Yeah. Just the drive. Forty-seven miles of interstate at 75.4 mph.

Plus a half mile of dirt road, which provides the prettier pictures.

Left at 05:35. By myself.

For the second morning in a row. Working early morning hours for the past five days straight obviously wore on the heelers. Neither got up out of bed when I left yesterday, and neither got up today.

No, a sleep-in morning with the wife was just too tempting. Sorely tempting for me, too, but we lost days and days of lek surveying opportunity with the blizzard and subsequent mud this month.

I can't afford to sleep in any more. By my rough calculations as I headed out yestertday morning, I need to average three elks a morning for the rest of strutting season to finish up the 90-some leks I need to check.

So, as I headed out onto the interstate, I had six miles.

Six miles to figure it out...

Where am I going this morning?

Probably my earliest departure time yet this spring, but I've done most the easy leks. Other than a few I'm saving for when I really can't get up early, everything that's left is probably well over an hour away.

GPS says sunrise will be 06:33. Give or take, depending on how far west I drive. So I've got six mile to decide where I'm going. Whether it will be north, or west.

North is more fun. The open desert, few fences, little private land.

Almost no gas fields.

But I've done most the leks out to the uranium mine, and need to move farther into the desert.

Takes almost an hour just to get to the mine. Leastwise, it does when it's dark and you have to worry about pronghorn or feral horses on the road.

Doubtful if I could make it in time to get more than one lek, or maybe two.

West is more important, because that is in the gas fields. But the three leks next to hit are 67 miles down the interstate, then up into the desert.

Can I get there in 55 minutes?

Maaaybe. But at least, if I can't, there's two other leks, almost certain to be empty, in the middle of the gas field that still need a looksee.

Going west at least has a Plan B.

West it is.

This decision reached, literally, as I come up on the exit that would take me north.

Truth be told, had I had heelers with me, I would have turned north. Just because they would have enjoyed it more.

As I crossed the Continental Divide, the blue glow of dawn was just starting to stir in the east.

Eighteen miles further on, that glow had finally turned red.

But while the interstate was half full with semis, many of their brethren were still asleep alongside the road.

As I passed the Continental Divide exit, which is nowhere near any part of the Continental Divide, I could see sunrise rapidly approaching.

Its vanguards of light pink leapfrogging the clouds above, attempting to pass.

I'm in a race I cannot win.

Plan 'B' it is, then. I pull off in the heart of the gas fields, past the new truck stop, and head north.

But quickly dive off the road into the barrow ditch, presumably startling the gas field worker driving behind me.

For this:

I stayed there for at least six minutes. Haven't counted how many pictures I took, but there were over 230 for just the morning.

One of them was this.

After taking a panoramic series in all directions, I noticed the view behind me. The pink vanguards of sunrise were still racing west. They had work to do.

As did I.

And to the north I went.