All I can tell you is, if you want to see antelope, take the U.S. 64 shortcut from Raton to Cimarron. No, I don’t have a picture, but them’s the breaks.
We were driving along past vast expanses of tall dry grass — it was a very wet summer, remember — and I said, “Man, I’ll bet we see an antelope out here.” Thirty seconds later we came over a rise and bingo, about two dozen close to the road, half hidden by the grass. I was entranced. For mile after mile we saw more and more antelope, the late afternoon sun gleaming golden yellow on their creamy smooth butts. It was like the Serengeti Plain. Only after we’d reached the end of the prairie and headed up into the mountains did I realize that I could have taken photos! Yes, even from a moving car with the camera I have. Dang!
I’ve witnessed the most incredible animal incidents with a camera hanging from my neck, and this has happened more times than I can count. Once in Big Bend National Park in the spring of ’64, I was driving down a road in the evening with two friends of mine from SMU. Suddenly we saw a pack of javelinas (wild pigs) cross the road, and I pulled to a stop. One of my friends yelled, “PORK!” and leaped from the truck with the firewood axe. (Yes, it was a national park, but we were 18 and crazy…) He charged down the steep hillside after the pigs, leaping over cacti and boulders, and the critters didn’t even act scared. A few seconds later the rest of the pack –big males, mostly — appeared from the other side of the road and ran down the hill after my friend, who was now surrounded by wild pigs that weren’t running away. Watching him whoop and holler and hightail it back to safety was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, and yes, my 35 mm camera was literally in my hands the whole time.
Some things you just don’t think about until they’re gone.
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