12/26/2007

Christmas 2007

Every year my Mother-In-Law Carol has a Christmas eve party. Anyone who wishes to come is invited. However there were some no shows:
Santa-Joe - Who is in hospice recovering from Cancer of the throat.
Alan - Who was in town but otherwise engaged.
David - Unknown reason.
Eric - Was in town earlier in the month.
Here are some of the pics from Christmas eve.

From Left to Right, Kayla, Sean, Dixie, Kathi, and Carol.

From Left to Right, Juliet, Maeghan, Amanda, Haven, Amanda, and Kayla.

Tammy, and Carol, Amanda Maeghan, Dixie, and Mindy.

Maeghan, Tammy, Amanda, Mindy, Kayla, and Chris
Here are some pics from Christmas day.

Mary, (yes she can smile).

See I told you so!

Candy, the other Eric, Barbara, and Daniel.

Megan (who gets beaten with reeds if she smiles).

12/23/2007

Average Weekend at Robert's

Once winter hits, Mike, Chris, and I can finally go out and do the things we like to do. So whenever we get a chance we head out to the Florence Military Reservation, where we go "hiking".

There is something about the desert in winter... IT'S COLD! But we wouldn't miss it for the world. After hiking around for 2 to 4 hours we head back to my house. Today Chris went home as he was tired, Mike and I went to the grocery store. We came back to watch a movie and Mike was out like a light, along with his son.

12/13/2007

People Interested in Office George Cortez Jr.

Lately my site has been receiving a lot of traffic from Google in reference to my post on Officer George Cortez Junior's Funeral procession. If you are here to read about the funeral procession, please leave a comment below or sign my Guest book as to what has brought you here. Please visit his web page at: http://www.georgecortez.com/

12/03/2007

Not Another Canyon Lake Post!

Yes... Another one.

We went there Saturday to pick up the great quantities of cans at the bottom of the lake. We were doing this because Mike's roommate owed him a lot of money. However it had been raining for 2 days, and as I feared everything was soaked and sections of the lake bed were in the process of washing away.

At the first bridge the floor of the lake had been eroded by about 6 feet.
The flood waters had washed the newspaper vending machines (all 6 of them) a couple hundred yards down stream, and uncovered the remains of the second car we had found on our last visit.

The good news is that "if" we have to go back to pickup the cans most of the soft mud has been washed away. While at this locations Mike's narcolepsy kicked in.
Just kidding!!! We moved on down to the east of the second bridge and the same thing was happening there.
We stood around and watched the banks of the river wash away.

The sun came out for a few seconds and I got a couple of good pictures of it.
Finally we moved on to the second bridge.

There will probably be at least one more post about the lake before they refill it. I know you can't wait.

11/25/2007

Canyon Lake Drawdown Revisited

Today we went back out to Canyon lake, this time with my trusty metal detector. I wanted to see if there was anything really interesting or valuable buried in the mud under the first bridge.
We quickly found this was going to be a problem as there was an insane number of aluminum cans buried in the dried mud. However while looking around I found one very interesting object buried under about 1 inch of mud. The mud had dried and cracked revealing it to me. I am surprised no one else had seen it as many people had been through this area, here it is after I got it home and cleaned it up:
You will note from the above image that the number has been removed from the lower part of the handle using a drill and a chisel. No other number is on the item. The slide and everything else was not attached and was not within 10 feet of it, possibly the other pieces had been dumped somewhere else. From where it was located it looks like someone threw it in as they drove onto the bridge. After we had finished our explorations we attempted to drop it off at the local constabulary in A.J. but it was not open on Sunday. Since the important parts are missing and there is no number I will probably remove the nickel plated parts that did not rust and dispose of the rest.

On this trip we decided to check out the second bridge, here are some pics:



In the above picture of the Bridge with the sun behind it I am standing next to the column for scale.

We had to do some hiking to get down into the lake bed under the second bridge. Once down there we could not walk on most of the mud as we would have sunk up to our knees. We carefully hiked around to the other side and walked to where the marina used to be before it was temporarily moved. In that area we observed (but could not get to):
more of everything we noted in my first list plus
A Boom Box.
2 Potted (but dead) ficus trees.
A stereo.
A Direct TV satellite dish.
A 20 foot mast with antenna attached.
Lots of shoes.
Many more lawn chairs.
A stereo amplifier.
Several badly rusted anchors of various design.
A complete and upright gas grill stuck in the mud.

As we were hiking out of the lake bed we saw this guy flying over head.
It appears to be a fully armed Huey Cobra.

No we did not find the wallet.

11/18/2007

Canyon Lake Drawdown

Since we had bought a trailer, one of the places we were going to camp with it this winter was Canyon Lake. Well... wouldn't you know it they decided to lower the water level by almost 100 feet at this time so they can perform maintenance on Mormon Flats dam.
Not ones to miss such an opportunity we decided this weekend to check it out. We drove up there this morning around 08:15, and parked at an area where we have fished in the past. We started making our way down the steep crumbly sides of the lake when Mike stepped on a rock outcrop that gave way and he almost did a butt slide down the hill. in the picture below the white circle is around the chunk of rock that gave way.
He slightly damaged his camera and his pride. luckily he didn't break anything. He did scratch his back, left arm, and left hand.
Once we determined that an ambulance was not needed we continued with our explorations. The first thing we noticed was the lack of underwater vegetation, the large number of beer and soda cans, and lots of fishing line. We headed for the bridge you cross over to access the lake. here we found the buoys and their weights that marked the entrance.
The next thing we came across was these enormous cracks in the sediment at the bottom of the lake. The crack are 1 to 4 inches across, and 3 to 10 inches deep.
You had to be careful walking across them as they were very mushy and if you stepped in the crack you could twist your ankle quite severely. The next thing we came across was a jeep that had apparently ran off the road or had been pushed into the lake. No human remains were found inside.
We found a motorcycle but there wasn't much left of it. The really interesting stuff was found under the bridge.
We found 2 newspaper vending machines...
The bolt from a rifle...
and a small safe.
The safe had been shot at least twice, and someone had managed to rip a hole in the bottom. Some of the contents of the safe were still inside (remnants of porno magazines). Chris also found a 20 pound anchor (which he carried out). We then hiked back out and went to the section of the lake where there is a floating pier. They had removed the floating pier at some point and all that was left was part of the walk way.
This is the view of the second bridge (we didn't hike to it because there was water under it).
Some interesting things we found in this area was some broken up fish habitats, the junk under water where we had lost our drop shots, a fire extinguisher (discharged), some extra fresh squishy mud, and 2 cans of unopened soda (coke and sierra mist). We opened them and they were still carbonated. We left and were going to go to Mormon Flats dam but half way there we came across an ominous sign warning of all sorts of dire consequences if we went any further.

Some of the other things we found in the bottom of the lake:
Lots of sun glasses with one lens missing.
Many children's fishing poles.
Lawn chairs.
Sleeping bags.
Broken or complete, but rusted fishing poles.
Parts of fishing reels.
Flashlights.
Places where bags of trash had been sunk.
A bicycle.
Tire Rims.
Tires.
Concrete weights.
A "fun saver camera" (fun not saved).
Clothing.
A boat ladder.
A "Diver down" flag.
Some kind of old computer or phone switching equipment.
Oars.
A warning sign to not "stop on, loiter, fish, or dive" off the bridge (we set this up in the mud below the bridge).
A ham bone.
Diving suit slippers.
Swim fins.
A child's toy camping lantern.
Car/Boat batteries.
The unidentifiable rusted remnants of another car from the 50's or 60's (it had round jet engine style tail lights).

We overheard 2 women who were walking around with their dogs under the bridge say that someone they knew had lost a wallet which contained about $1800.00 in the lake in that general area (we never saw a wallet).