"Not at all. It's your mini-vacation, after all," he says. "You want me to stop so you can get down and run a bit?"

They're coming up on some thicker brush, but there are animal tracks between the plants, and the plants themselves are spread out, since there is only so much water available and that means it's sparse even when 'thick'.

"Buffalo are big," he says. "And there aren't any here. We'd be able to see them."