Sunday, April 29, 2012

Ghostly Visions

The people are few and far between in this country.  Entertainment is often wryly humorous, like the cowboy legs emerging from the rocky soil, or a odds-and-ends sculpture of an extraterrestrial, or even a spooky skeleton in a wheel chair:


At the campground above Baker we encountered some RVers who had a large white dog, larger than Tillie, but about the same shape.  Then, in Baker, there appeared to be a group of these large white dogs at a house in the town.  Perhaps they are a local breed.

After leaving Baker, we headed south toward Utah and Cedar City.  Long stretches of open range with cattle crossing the highway and pronghorn antelope darting away fill the vastness, with an occasional remote house way back from the road.   

We frequently pull over to use the trailer facilities--our own portable rest-stop--just slowing and stopping on a wide section of road.  At one stop, with open range all around, I was walking back to unlock the trailer when I spotted a large whitish dog in the distance about 1/4 mile away, standing on the road and peering toward me.  I climbed in to the trailer and used the facilities and by the time I climbed back out, the dog was at the trailer door, slowly wagging his tail and looking woebegone.  His coat was longer than Tillie's, shaggy, and perhaps he was a sheep dog.  

I wasd going to give him a piece of leftover toast with marmalade that Helen had squirreled away in her purse, but she couldn't find it, and the dog slowly wandered away, then disappeared suddenly.  As wwe continued driving down the road, we encountered another dog--same color and shape--on the road, this time dragging a short broken off rope.  He watched us go by, looking just as sorrowful as the first.

These ghostly dogs must be working sheep, we decided, as there seemed to be a sheep flock in the far distance by the base of the hills.  

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