Desert Dory
New member
Since I had so much fun doing the story for the Havasu trip, and you guys are so encouraging, I thought I'd go ahead and add some stories for some of the other trips in my album. Here's our 4th of July 2020 trip.
Our family has a tradition of spending the 4th of July at Patagonia lake an hour or so south of us. We usually take the kayaks, the fishing boat (prior to getting the Dory), paddle-boards, etc, and hang at the lake all day with a bunch of friends. It's a good time. Then, in the evening, we head into the little town of Patagonia for dinner and the awesome fireworks display at the local high school. Small town Americana Baby! It's the BEST!!!
Well, with the COVID thing (there it is again! Screwing everything up!) the fireworks and parade got cancelled, the Velvet Elvis (we go there for pizza) is closed. So, this year we decide to change things up a bit. Instead of heading into town after a day at the lake, the Mrs. and I reserved a couple of "boat-in" campsites at good Ol' Patagonia lake.
The Mrs and I invited another couple we know and our adult children invited 253+ of their closest friends. All good, right? WRONG!!!
Out of those 253+ friends, guess how many own a device that actually floats, much less a friggen boat? If you guessed ZERO, you're absolutely right on the money. Guess who has a boat and got to shuttle 253+ young adults, 593,020 lbs of "STUFF", a dog, a hamster named Muffin, and a host of other crap, to two boat-in campsites? If you guessed Desert Dory, you're right again!
What the heck is wrong with some of these youngsters? Do they have any idea that "camping" for two nights does NOT require an actual, folding, 6" thick memory foam mattress, a/c and generator, several fans, and enough food to feed all of East Africa!?!! I kid you not! It was amazing the crap I ended up hauling across the lake.
Why can't they be more like my Powell buddy, Ken. He travels light and sleeps on a bed of nails and pinecones.
These kids today are friggen softies! (Well, of course, with the exception of my own two, well trained and brought up right youngsters, who both slept in hammocks hovering mere inch's above several fresh piles of cow crap. I'm SOOOO proud!)
Being this was NOT my favorite outing with the Dory I really didn't care about getting any pics as I was NOT a happy camper. Feeling somewhat anti-social (I blamed it on Covid. Gotta social-distance, right!) I pretty much isolated myself to my chair in the cockpit of the Dory, pouted, and drank beer.
BUT!!! There was one highlight to this fiasco of a weekend that I thoroughly enjoyed.
The second night in, a couple of these tough guy youngsters decided to hang at the edge of the water where I had the Dory tied up. They had a few beers and were laughing and scratching when suddenly I get a whiff of cigar smoke (I like a good cigar and may have been a little offended that I wasn't invited). So, I'm just sitting there in my deck chair, sipping on my Rum, when all off a sudden I hear what sounds like a friggen fire hose spraying into the water!
I turn around to see what's going on and I see one of these boys latched onto the base of a tree trunk at the waters edge spraying what appeared to be three lunches and a dinner into the lake. IT WAS GLORIOUS!!! Made my weekend!
Anyhow, here's a couple crappy pics.
My crew. The Boy (just back from his first deployment), the Mrs. and the Girl
Our family has a tradition of spending the 4th of July at Patagonia lake an hour or so south of us. We usually take the kayaks, the fishing boat (prior to getting the Dory), paddle-boards, etc, and hang at the lake all day with a bunch of friends. It's a good time. Then, in the evening, we head into the little town of Patagonia for dinner and the awesome fireworks display at the local high school. Small town Americana Baby! It's the BEST!!!
Well, with the COVID thing (there it is again! Screwing everything up!) the fireworks and parade got cancelled, the Velvet Elvis (we go there for pizza) is closed. So, this year we decide to change things up a bit. Instead of heading into town after a day at the lake, the Mrs. and I reserved a couple of "boat-in" campsites at good Ol' Patagonia lake.
The Mrs and I invited another couple we know and our adult children invited 253+ of their closest friends. All good, right? WRONG!!!
Out of those 253+ friends, guess how many own a device that actually floats, much less a friggen boat? If you guessed ZERO, you're absolutely right on the money. Guess who has a boat and got to shuttle 253+ young adults, 593,020 lbs of "STUFF", a dog, a hamster named Muffin, and a host of other crap, to two boat-in campsites? If you guessed Desert Dory, you're right again!
What the heck is wrong with some of these youngsters? Do they have any idea that "camping" for two nights does NOT require an actual, folding, 6" thick memory foam mattress, a/c and generator, several fans, and enough food to feed all of East Africa!?!! I kid you not! It was amazing the crap I ended up hauling across the lake.
Why can't they be more like my Powell buddy, Ken. He travels light and sleeps on a bed of nails and pinecones.
These kids today are friggen softies! (Well, of course, with the exception of my own two, well trained and brought up right youngsters, who both slept in hammocks hovering mere inch's above several fresh piles of cow crap. I'm SOOOO proud!)
Being this was NOT my favorite outing with the Dory I really didn't care about getting any pics as I was NOT a happy camper. Feeling somewhat anti-social (I blamed it on Covid. Gotta social-distance, right!) I pretty much isolated myself to my chair in the cockpit of the Dory, pouted, and drank beer.
BUT!!! There was one highlight to this fiasco of a weekend that I thoroughly enjoyed.
The second night in, a couple of these tough guy youngsters decided to hang at the edge of the water where I had the Dory tied up. They had a few beers and were laughing and scratching when suddenly I get a whiff of cigar smoke (I like a good cigar and may have been a little offended that I wasn't invited). So, I'm just sitting there in my deck chair, sipping on my Rum, when all off a sudden I hear what sounds like a friggen fire hose spraying into the water!
I turn around to see what's going on and I see one of these boys latched onto the base of a tree trunk at the waters edge spraying what appeared to be three lunches and a dinner into the lake. IT WAS GLORIOUS!!! Made my weekend!
Anyhow, here's a couple crappy pics.
My crew. The Boy (just back from his first deployment), the Mrs. and the Girl
