The Beauty of the Pronghorn

As you may know, Tom and I took a quick trip to Death Valley National Park last week.  Tom is always open to traveling on back roads, be they paved, gravel, or dirt.  I prefer the main highway, but I acquiesce to Tom sometimes because we have certainly come across some interesting sights in the past on various back roads.

So leaving Lone Pine last Thursday, Tom warned me that the back roads we would travel on in Death Valley would not be the best.  I have to say that was an understatement!  We started out fine, but as we continued, the roads grew worse and worse.  The first road we were on was a level, gravel road with typical, yet beautiful desert scenery.

We started climbing upward and upward along Hunter Mountain.  The view was gorgeous.  But the road turned to dirt.  We started to bounce along as we tried to avoid many ruts.  The road was, in fact, one lane wide at times.

Then we ran into a bit of snow.  I was worried that the snow would worsen, but, fortunately, it did not.  Later I found out that this road is closed during the winter because the snow makes it impassable.

Finally, as we rounded the bend of the mountain, we were shocked to see a beautiful, deer-like animal, drinking from a pool of water in the middle of the road right in front of our truck.  He quickly scampered off after he saw us.

Then looking at the almost vertical, sunny slope in front of us, we saw two more of the same, grazing.  They didn’t seem afraid of us.  They continued eating and moving around as if we were just normal passersby.

At the time, we thought they weren’t deer, but we didn’t know what they were.  When cell coverage was available again, we figured out they were pronghorn, who are not in the antelope family, but are often considered as such.

Later in the day at the Visitors Center in Furnace Creek, Tom mentioned to a ranger that we had seen some pronghorn that morning.  The ranger was very surprised and pleased.  Pronghorn have just recently moved into the park.  The first sighting of them at Death Valley was in April of 2020.  No one understands why they would have traveled to Death Valley where the temperatures can be extreme.

One conjecture is that the pronghorn might have migrated from San Luis Obispo County, which is a considerable distance west of the park.  Wherever these particular pronghorn were from, we were just extremely happy we had a chance to see how beautiful they were as they were going about their daily routine.

Maybe that’s the same with people too.  Sometimes we are struck by someone’s “beauty” in doing the mundane tasks of life.  When we recognize it, we need to also  appreciate that we have come across something special. There is definitely “beauty” all around us.  Can we find it and be thankful for it?