FOR BETTER OR WORSE~ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS

From Nevada Highway 165, at 2,500 feet, we descend 5 twisting miles across the Mojave Desert down to Lake/Reservoir Mojave, Nevada Telephone Cove to 650 foot elevation at water's edge.  It’s slow going on the gravel, washboard road but well worth it.

Somewhere along 1951 or so, United States Bureau of Reclamation decided to once again put a plug in the Colorado River.  This new dam backed up the river creating a head of water to irrigate crops, supply millions of electric kilowatts, make playgrounds for boats , camping beaches for vacationers and control floods.  There was a great deal of opposition from the Edward Abbey’s of the day, (The Monkey Wrench Gang) mainly for esthetic reasons but also it would drown 50 thousand years of indigenous history; Not to mention that the whole reservoir would unquestionably “silt-up” and eventually kill itself.  Today, a preponderance of evidence from climate scientists suggests as soon as 20 years the whole Colorado river will most likely run dry from lack of rainfall and the constant draining to water golf courses from Las Vegas to Yuma, AZ and make green the vegetables all the way to the Imperial Valley of California.

We’ve been here almost a week, enjoyed  perfect short and T-shirt weather, met new friends, walked and biked the hills, marveled at blazing sunsets and soothing sunrises and lazed on the shore listening to Ring-billed Gulls, Double Breasted Cormorants, Horned Grebe’s and the quacks of hundreds of ducks.

                                                                             Dawn

  HORNED GREBE IN HIS NON-MATING COLORS

  COSTA'S HUMMINGBIRD~Love the mustachio

     WHITE THROATED SWIFT~Best Photo out of a 100

Meet Cal-Dog, a man in search of self, trying to sort out what is essential, taking time away from spreadsheets, numbers, computers and the turmoil of corporate pressure.  “My Chevy Hotel serves me well,” I’ve heard him say twice.  The bed of his pick-up truck functions as bedroom, the tailgate a table, the great outdoors his kitchen. Washing machine supplied by Lake Mojave.

Rain has been bloomingly abundant this spring for the many flowers here in the barren landscape.  Fighting their way to survive in this non-fertile gravel is the “real” Miracle grow.

                                                                    Mojave Fringe-toed Lizard

Mr Lizard pays no mind to the rising or falling of the reservoir and just goes about his everyday concerns of shade and sustenance.  I hope our poisons and progress don’t eliminate his species along with the naked ape.