Just Another Day

This past week some of our teammates and friends were in town to pack up their house and move on to their next adventure. They left today which means we all went out to the airport (paved air strip) to see them off. This involves several trips back and forth to take people and stuff to the plane because we only have a couple of cars. My roommates and I hung out under the shadow of the plane's wing while everything got loaded.
The goodbyes were sad...no getting around that. After everyone was loaded on the plane I had to drive one of the cars back. This doesn't sound like a very big deal, but it's manual and I get a little stressed about it because I don't do it that often. Me and the roomies piled in the Land Cruiser and moved off the pavement so the plane could make it to the runway. I stalled out once during this process but made it safely to my spot to watch them take off.
We watched the plane go to one end of the air strip, turn around and go to the other end, and then turn around again and stop. This was really abnormal and we were trying to figure out what was going on. The plane was a pretty good distance away, but we see the pilot waving us on to the runway. Great....why in the world does he want me on the runway?
Well I pulled onto the pavement (after a local man jumped into our car too because he wanted to see what was going on) and in front of the plane and then I saw why. On the far end of the runway were 2 donkeys hanging out. I do my best to not grind the gears while I'm heading to the donkeys. As we were closer, the local guy instructs me to go behind them to get them to move. Thankfully the donkeys got the message and moved pretty quickly without much maneuvering on my part. I pulled off the runway with the donkeys. By this time the other car caught on as to what was happening and took over chasing the donkeys well into the bush. As the plane was taking off right behind us, and I was watching this car enthusiastically chase two donkeys through bushes and trees I had to laugh. This was just another day in the desert.