So yesterday evening we finally got started on pronghorn classifications.

Only a couple weeks late...

This was the first group, right off the highway:

By the time darkness fell, I had classified over 100 pronghorn in my target area. And visited with a pair of French (or Quebecois?) tourists who had turned back from their planned shortcut across our desert.

They said they turned back because the road got too rough for their minivan, but I suspect that machine would have done just fine on the main roads. Their problem was, they were relying on their dash-mounted GPS and its "official" maps.

The county road they were trying to follow across the desert was abandoned decades ago for a better route. So yeah, if you're trying to follow that line on the map, it probably was too rough to drive.

This is the second time I've come across out-of-staters relying on GPS maps. The first time, I have no doubt if I hadn't encountered the fellow trying to follow a nonexistant line in the middle of a blizzard, someone would have found his bones a couple hundred meters from his abandoned car the next spring.

Those digital maps are dangerous.

Aaaanyway, some more pronghorn...

The heelers suddenly lost their enthusiasm at ten after eight. When they realized that not only was dinner going to be late, but that it was going to be very late. The masked one piled into the back seat to lay down and pout, her sister remaining in front to glare at me. But we were barely past Mary's Tits when darkness fell.

The full moon escorted us home

past the CO₂ injection plant.

Even though the night's clouds kept trying to swallow it up.