The giant machinations of nature are so evident out on the high lonesome prairie of Wyoming. Today, we traveled for an hour and a half, down and up long, bumpy, rock-strewn roads to the remote site of yet another television transmitter, on Shirley Mountain, down near Medicine Bow. The very same Medicine Bow made famous in Owen Wister's The Virginian and in Art Thieme's Cowboy's Barbara Allen.

On the way we saw Chalk Mountain, a stark sheer wall of a mountain rising up in brilliant white, a kind of wild West "Cliffs of Dover". The contrast of the brightness, with dark green ponderosa pines, blue gray silver of the sagebrush, along wtht the various wheat coloured prairie grasses was emphasized by huge, billowy white clouds, the sun peaking through in fits of hot, high altitude brilliance.

All of the hills and mountains lift up in one direction, like giants' tilted tabletops, looking as though everything on them should come sliding off, crashing to the plains below. Wyoming is a geologist's dream garden.

Shirley Mountain is the highest point in that area at about 8,500 feet, rising straight up from about 4,000 feet. On top, one can see for hundreds of miles in every direction with no impediments...just clear, long distances of rolling prairie full of muted reds, yellows, blues, and greens.

The noise of our truck and rising dust behind us, scared up many prairie dogs, as well as small hawks and an eagle or two. Large bands of antelope crisscrossed the road in front of us, back and forth, in a ground-eating pattern of evasion, while four elk didn't even let us get close, running, melting into a small arroyo of trees, blending so well they were invisible.

The transmitter on Shirley is located on a huge, private ranch of 100 square miles, approximately 200,000 acres. It was evident by the animals' behavoir they know their seasons well. The cold nights and pleasantly cool days bring the noisy long sticks which mean their death; all they can do is keep watch, be alert and try to outrun the manufactured death, the most unnatural thing in this landscape of timeless beauty.

I feel blessed with the sights of today, by the ceaseless rustle of the wind through the dry and scrubby brush, and the sharp, tangy scent of crushed sage. They and creatures assure me of the rightness of all creation and I am thankful.

kat