Cropped

The Last Chance Desert is in the south central part of Utah, just north of Capitol Reef National Park...minus the thousands of tourists. I saw two guys on a side by side off road vehicle...that was it for humans Fri-Sat. Which makes it my go to happy place. Plus it's a Bortle Class 1 dark sky location for astrophotography. This adventure was whole different event. The moon was waxing gibbous with no Milky Way until 4 am. So I hiked, collected gobs of agates, hundreds of photos, visited the Piano in Piano Gulch and waited for nightfall.

As soon as I parked and stepped out of my vehicle, turned on the UV flashlight my world turned purple and within ten steps my target of the evening - a Scorpion! They
fluoresce bright lime green like they were painted. Besides the scorpions several different minerals also glowed orange being the prominent color. I only had to cover a 50 yard radiused circle to see more than I could count. Stopped counting after 40. All were solo and they seem to like it that way, IMO. I'll put together a collage soon and post that. I also saw during the daylight hours a mated pair of Long Nosed Leopard Lizards. Got some amazing closeups of them since they most likely had not previous human contact and were very calm with me nearby. They were only disturbed by the DSLR camera shutter noise. A great desert adventure! Oh and a Cow Killer was seen as well. The second most painful stinging insect after the Bullet Ant.