Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 8

Sam And Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part. 8

11/3/08 – 11/29/08 Yuma

Sam - Time To Choose Just One

Rocks:

If you know Sam and I, then you know that I have brain-washed him into the importance of gathering and building a herd of free-roaming rocks.  Their whole purpose is to generate our wonderment at their individual traits.  We have one from the mountains that contain those “guys” heads, several from South Dakota.  This time, Ted took us into the foothills and showed us some old mines and shared information on how and who mined them.  Sam ran to keep up with Ted as he walked up one of the ‘road-paths’ to a more recently worked, but now abandoned, mine.  He came back with a nice dark purple ‘black’ quartz.  After the rain, Sam and I went back and gathered a beautiful white quartz rock about 2 feet in diameter (Sam measurement).  Mighty big!  We gathered more from that area and from the wash behind the park.  I’ll be making hard decisions in the near future if I want to take anything but rocks home to Portland.

Boat; Lakes; Fishing:

I need to do a little time-traveling on this issue. Sam, Owen and I bought the Fold-A-Boat at Camp World on I-5 prior to leaving on our trip.  It is a 10 ½ foot, light weight, aluminum boat that folds down to about one and one half feet wide, about six inches thick and remains the same length.  It travels on top of Brutus as we merrily zig and zag down the road.  Sam offered about ½ of what it was listed at and they accepted.  So we get to Yuma and want to give it a try.  We had looked into electric motors, but due to the weight issue (not just mine), we decided to use a paddle for the  ‘maiden voyage’.  We went to Martinez Lake, just off of the Colorado River.  I took out my hearing aide and Sam launched us into the lake. The boat feels so light - I panic, Sam laughs. I throw my bright orange ear plugs into the water, making the ‘grand gesture’ that if I was going to fall in – then so be it!.. Sam, still chuckling, handed me my pole.  I cast it in and the sinker sank (as sinkers do) plummeting down fast.  A total distance of about 4 feet.  Boy did I feel silly, again!!!  I have no luck at grand gestures.  Sam rowed us over to where my bright orange plugs were, so I could unlitter the light emerald, slightly murky, green water of Martinez Lake.  We fished hard – but did not even get a bite.  The locals at the tavern/café indicated that the Flat Head Catfish, Channel Cat, Bass, Blue Gill, etc. would bite on almost anything. Ha! I say! Nary one bite.

Martinez Lake

Next, we went to Mittry Lake, the one that Ted introduced us to.  Beautiful palm trees, bamboo and a hairy type of small cedar tree surrounded the lake and the area.  We launched off of a spit that was shaped like a long hockey stick, only there were 16 palm trees on the stick.  Someone keeps the bamboo cut down so that one can access the lake.  People are allowed to camp free for 10 days at sites around the lake. The view is fantastic. Mmmm.  This lake is also just off of the Colorado River and is actually a reservoir instead of a lake (like Martinez).  We fish for a while on the lake, with no luck and decide to go back to the hockey stick.  I catch a small catfish, but one is not good, so we let it loose.  We decide to leave and Sam starts to take the boat to the ‘real’ shore, when I get a really good bite.  He comes over to watch and next thing we see --- the fold- a-boat has been launched by a slight wind and is headed for the center of the lake.  It was so fun to watch Sam swim out to re-harness that (did I mention very light weight?) boat.  In addition to the scenery, we had a white crane-type bird decide we were interesting and she stayed near us almost the whole time we were there.  There were massive amounts of ducks (at both lakes), apparently eating the vegetation growing in the lakes.  These ducks really talked a lot and were annoying at times.  Big hawks soared, right along with the helicopters from the nearby armed service bases.  Once a truck with two guys stopped, pointed several times at the spit just over from the one we were on – it turns out that they were trying to turn our attention to a bob cat sitting there watching the ducks.  We had a blast!!! 

Mittry Lake