Your tax dollars at work!

Today was my first experience driving a government vehicle! I felt especially inspired and capable after catching this episode of Duck Dynasty last night...

You know, I really enjoy that show.

Where did I go in the Chevy Silverado? Wikieup, Arizona:


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a small stop on the way to somewhere else. Presumably Phoenix. It took me an hour to get there from Kingman, and I saw maybe two vehicles and zero other things besides tumbleweed and open range on the way.

I met with a local (and my goodness is that a relative term in a place like Wikieup-- I'll come back to that) rancher who is building a cattle fence for NRCS, his wife, and a District Conservationist who needed more fence check experience. This was my first fence, too. We met at the trading post (seriously! the trading post! which is nearly the only thing there!) and jumped into one truck and spent two and a half hours driving on dirt roads around an enormous ranch, occasionally stopping to take GPS points and pictures to verify that the fence was put in as contracted. It was a beautiful, straight fence. They put the barbed wire at certain heights in different regions, depending on whether antelope are present or not (to make it easier for antelope but more difficult for cattle to sneak out). blah blah blah I like this stuff but you probably don't care whatever dream job!

So to give you an idea of "local"-- this man's got ranches all over the state, but lives somewhere outside of Wikieup. His daughter attends school in Wikieup, which is about 40 minutes drive from home. There are 27 students and 3 teachers in that school-- grades are combined K-2, 3-5 and 6-8. When she goes to high school, she'll have to take the bus an hour to Kingman. The fence we were checking today? 5.5 miles, and it was all within the ranch's borders-- NRCS doesn't built border fences, just partition fences to help with grazing management.

Drove back to Bullhead City and stopped to take this photo, because I think it says a lot about where I am.

 

Quiet evening. Our friend Eric is here visiting. He's in Las Vegas for work this week. This weekend's trip (Petrified Forest and Painted Desert!) is being augmented by Meteor Crater, as per the brilliant suggestion of one of Mike's coworkers! Yessss!