Wednesday, August 18
Lewis and Clark were the first Americans to report of a pronghorn antelope in the notes of their journals. Merriwether Lewis described it as “a cross between a deer and a goat” and I’m sure that apt description still applies today.
Yesterday afternoon I had heard a muted but distinct two-toned bleat and thought, “What could that be?” I turned and saw an antelope. “Could it be he that made that sound,” I wondered? “Do antelope make noises?”
Well, this morning while eating breakfast, I heard it again and there was another pronghorn! It was up the hill standing on a knoll looking rather like a male sentinel. Then, in a small gap of the rocks, I saw an antelope walk by, then another, then another followed by two babies, then followed by another adult. That buck on the knoll had indeed been a sentinel and I feel lucky to have witnessed such a scene.
I was mulling this warm experience when a Wyoming Dept. of Transportation truck pulled over and I saw the driver looking at my hillside camp. He then got on his radio and slowly drove away. I wondered if he and I shared different definitions of “public lands” and perhaps it was time to “boogie on down the road.”
The rest of the day was generally uneventful and at its end I found a perfectly private camping place off the side of the road.
That would have been amazing. You're a very lucky man, Mr. Brown!
ReplyDelete--Margaret Hibdon