Mittry Lake

A week or so ago I traveled down to Paradise Casino in Yuma to meet up with Jeanne, Kim, Nancy and Tom, who drove over from San Diego.  We parked for free in the casino parking lot - it was over Superbowl weekend - and it was very crowded!  Some of us had dental appointments in Los Algodones, Mexico, and Kim and I wanted to check out new glasses at a couple of the Mexican optical shops.

I had an appointment at the main post office in Yuma to apply for a passport - since I've never had one before, I needed an in-person appointment.  A couple of days before, Jeanne and I went to town and I had my passport photos taken at Wal-Mart, I had completed the application on-line and printed it out, and had sent to the California Secretary of State for a certified copy of my birth certificate, which I received.  With all that in hand, Tom and I went to the post office and I turned it all in, answered their questions, paid the fees and now I'm just waiting for my first ever passport to arrive.  All in all, the whole process was easier than I expected.

We visited a lot, took some walks, had dinner together a couple of times, and then we moved on in different directions.

Tom and I drove our motor homes to Mittry Lake.  He's a new RVer, and since he was visiting in the dusty, crowded, dirt parking lot at Paradise Casino with no complaints, I thought it only fair to show him a nicer place to camp for a few days.  Mittry was beautiful, as usual, but VERY crowded.  We were lucky to get a spot right on the lake that was big enough for both our rigs.

Tom had his own spit of land going out into the lake right outside his door, where we put some chairs. The weather was perfect and he even did a little fishing.  There were a few mosquitoes, but not bad, and they didn't arrive until around dark when we were back in our rigs.  As long as we kept the doors and windows screened, there wasn't a problem.  Only three mosquitoes got into my rig, and I squished them all before bedtime. 

These are some photos I took while we were there.  I always see a Great Egret on the other bank and he was here again - one of my favorite water birds:

 Here he is with a couple of American Coots swimming by:

Another American Coot:

Below is a Double-crested Cormorant - a first sighting for me that I've added to my Life List:

And this little guy is another new Life List bird - he's a Pied-billed Grebe.  While breeding, their bill is whitish with a black band (“pied’), but otherwise is yellow-brown.  Very cute little guy:

This was my view out my rear kitchen window:

And below is the view out the dinette window.  There had been a fire and some of the trees were just charred sticks - but there were lots of birds on the ground and in the burned out trees while I was there. The lake came up into this marshy spot with areas  full of water, and in the evening and morning I could hear the ducks talking to each other.  Very cool way to wake up, listening to nearby duck chatter. 😴😮🙂

Beautiful sunset one night:

This was a weird sunset shot when we were at Paradise Casino - I was walking Katie and looked toward the sunset and saw a tunnel of pink coming up through the blue sky.

When the week was nearly up, Tom left to visit his sister in Sun Lakes, and I drove back up to Quartzsite, and was lucky to get my favorite spot again.

From me and Katie, have a great Social Security Wednesday, everyone!  I got mine this morning, and that always makes me a happy camper!   ❤💲🙂💲❤