Credit: Wildlife Heritage Foundation
I wish I had gotten a photo or two. I was sitting on the settee when I
detected movement outside. Then I was too enthralled to go after the
camera.
As the air began to cool, and the sun settled, we saw
two grown quail come out of the hedge row behind our camp. That’s a real rarity here, at least by my
experience. What was really neat was the
8-10 half-grown young that suddenly began stumbling out of the hedge row to
join them. They reminded me of a bunch
of kindergarteners out on a field trip.
They ran this way and that, jumped in the air, reversed their track back
and forth like any bunch of youngsters.
The parents stood tall, stretched their necks and swiveled their heads
being hyper-vigilant of everything.
Shortly they were all hustled back into the tall grass and disappeared.
The sky was just barely getting a hint of light. The windows were again all open, and we were
suddenly fully awakened by a scream immediately outside our bedroom
window. It wasn’t possible to tell
whether the scream was from a large bird or a squirrel. The cry wasn’t distinctive as to the species,
just a scream of sheer terror, the faint hoot of an owl, and then absolute
silence. I guess it was what a hunter
would call a ‘clean’ kill, but there was nothing clean about some poor creature
suddenly becoming breakfast. There was
an oak tree right outside the RV’s bedroom window, and a bit later we saw a
squirrel venturing down the tree, so one of its kind was probably what had
become the morning’s victim.
There was a nice breeze on the lake first thing. We decided to have a nice breakfast first
before I launched at the ramp. Jean
fried turkey bacon and set a pack of frozen blueberries out to thaw over a low
flame. I then made pancakes, and with a
pot of coffee, we sat down to a much nicer breakfast than that poor squirrel had
been having.
The wind was out of the south-southeast, or the full
length of the lake, so was rolling small waves onto the ramp. I set Ibi parallel to the water’s edge and
used my legs to keep it from pounding on the concrete. With a quick, or what translates to a quick
launch for a senior, I got in and shoved off.
It was immediately obvious that landing would not be as
comfortable. There was no alternative
landing option there. To either side of
the ramp are piles of concrete just dumped from a truck and allowed to harden
into boulders. Either side of that is
non-stop riprap that stretches to the next ramp a mile away, or to the base of
several cliffs.
I pulled the Falcon Sail up as soon as I cleared the
shore. I sailed as close to the wind as
I could, and with a light occasional paddle, worked to the south and nicely
upwind. The wind was continuing to build
as I decided to stay upwind, but sailed on and off the shore on a beam reach
using the paddle only for bracing.
If the wind had just held where it was when I
launched, it would have been an exciting paddle-sail, but it was obviously
intent on strengthening quickly. The
alternative landing ramps were to the northwest as the shore dropped away in a
large crescent called Big Bend. There
were two landing options I could escape to as whitecaps started to build. I knew landing at the ramp where I had
launched was out of the question. There
was a bit of cover from reeds by the next ramp.
I had the paddle cart with me, and it would only be a one-mile walk back
to the campsite. The next ramp was far
enough around the bend that it would definitely be a safe landing, but then
about a three-mile portage with the cart.
I fell off on a nice broad reach and flew down the
shoreline in two jibes. As I passed my
put-in ramp, my suspicion about not being able to safely access it now without
banging up the canoe was confirmed. The
second ramp was marginal with some small waves rolling onto it, but it looked
safe and serviceable. I dropped the
sailing rig, raised the rudder, and side slipped alongside the ramp. Everything worked out fine, and I just had a
nice one-mile stroll back to the camper with Ibi following quietly behind.
As I walked past one campsite where two men were
talking, one called out, “That water out there is getting a bit lumpy, isn’t
it?” They had already decided not to
take their fishing boat out on the lake.
Within an hour, the couple fishing boats I had seen on the lake when I
launched had also disappeared.
This was probably my second shortest paddle. I had only gone two miles, but with the sail
I had likely not paddled more than a dozen strokes. I can’t really pass it off as a paddle, so we
can just call it a drill or an exercise.
I got Ibi wet, and it still counts as another outing on the water. Back in the comfort of the RV, we listened to
the wind and the rattling of cottonwoods.
The highlight of the afternoon was looking out the
window and seeing a large roadrunner right alongside the trailer. He was working his way down the tree
line. He would see something in the
grass. I never could tell what he was
after, but he would drop his head and rush off 20-30 feet straight at it with
his legs flying. Whatever he was
pursuing, his aim clearly appeared to be dead-on.
The next day, Friday, would be our departure
time. We had aspirations of a few quiet
days, and chose mid-week Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. We anticipated having the campground almost
to ourselves. Boy! Add that to our ever-growing list of plans
that didn’t bear fruit. People started
coming in Wednesday evening, and it never stopped. By Thursday night it looked like the Fourth
of July weekend. Everyone else in the
state with a camper had had the same idea.
I told Jean, “Don’t worry. Just
wait until November.”
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