Sometimes our life is one long campout. This has been one of those weeks. We joined up with a small group of friends near Yuma, AZ. We were camped on the desert on the shores of a small backwater off of the Colorado River called Mittry Lake. We were almost roughing it. We had no electric, no running water, no cable TV, no cell phone and no internet. We did have sparkling clear skies and a full moon each night. We sang songs around the campfire, had pot luck meals and coyotes yelping right under our windows in the middle of the night.

During the days we rode the bicycle, hiked and canoed the lake. Mittry is a small reed enclosed lake with meandering channels and lots of wildlife. We saw Egrets, Herons, Coots, Ducks, Hawks, Osprey and a few thousand swallows. In the canoe we would drift through an opening in the reeds and watch the birds up-close and undisturbed.

Yesterday we joined friends Tom and Margie at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma for an Air Show. There were the usual collection of aerobatic flying acts plus we got to witness a B-1 Lancer over-flight and a re-enactment of the Zeros and torpedo planes attacking Pearl Harbor. There were only six AT-6’s and BT-13’s flying in the re-enactment. The pilots, however, did an excellent job of creating the feeling of the confusion of a real battle, and the pyrotechnics team added to the realism. I found myself all choked up at the end.

Today we traveled back to the relative civilization of Quartzsite, AZ. We how have cell phone and internet. We will still be “boon-docking,” that is no water or electric. Our Solar panels keep up with the power demand just fine. Tonight we will be hanging out with a group of Bluegrass people doing our picking and grinning. This is the simple life, and it suites us just fine.

Hugs to all from the Arizona Desert

Gary and Judy