We spent the last week on a lake near Yuma Arizona on the Colorado River called Mittry Lake. The living was easy, the rent was cheap, (free) and we made a whole passel of new friends. We have now justified hauling our canoe all over the Southwest. We were able to use the canoe and paddle all over the lake. Mittry Lake is an impoundment along the Colorado River and is run by the Arizona Fish and Game and the BLM. The camping and boating are free and there are multiple individual sites alongside the gravel road around the lake. This is the dusty part of the story. The Misquitos came in when we decided to have supper under the awning the first evening. The misquettos invited themselves to our dinner. I sprayed a little “Off” around and expected the mosquetos to vamoose. That didn’t work, I think it attracted even more moskitos. Judy had bought some super duper miskito repellant at REI, so we got that out and smeared it all over. The muskitos seemed to love that stuff too. We beat a hasty retreat into the coach and a cloud of miskuittos came in with us. We spent the next two hours with the fly swatter and the vacuum hose alternately batting at, and sucking up miskuitos.
The next day some folks noticed the canoe pulled up behind our coach and stopped to chat. They belonged to a group that calls itself the R(o)Ving Rods. They invited us to come to their end of the lake and join them at their camp. It had the advantage of no dust. We joined them the next day and eventually were included in a group of a dozen or so RV’s. We did pot lucks, happy hours and campfires with singing and swapping lies. They turned out to be a really fun group. Their end of the lake was no better on the moskittos. One night around the campfire, I was wearing long sleeves, long pants, hat and the super REI moskito repellant to thwart them pesky varmints. Between two songs I looked down at my feet. I had long socks and sandals on. Each foot had at least a dozen mousquitos on it lined up and pumping away. I made a swipe with my hand and smashed the whole mass in one swipe, and my white socks were instantly speckled blood red.
You may have noticed by now some creative spelling for the word “Miskuitto.” This is the year of the Lewis and Clark Bi-centenial. Lewis, in his journal was able to spell “Muskuitto” nineteen different ways. I will leave it to you to see if I was able to meet the challenge.
Judy and I send our love to all.
Gary and Judy.
