River Rats

I spent a few years of my early 20's, circa 1993, with friends on the Colorado river between California and Arizona down river from Lake Havasu. We would go for the weekend to boat, ski and party. When I met Damon I learned that he practically spent his childhood with family at Havasu. Yet in 13 years we had never been together, until last weekend. One of his cousins has carried the torch of tradition and camps with her family every year on Lake Havasu. We coordinated a meeting place and decided on a Saturday morning pick-up time. It's a five hour drive so we decided to nab a few hours shut eye and leave in the middle of the night to arrive in the am and avoid any traffic. His cousin was on the dock as scheduled and shuttled us back to camp. They stake out a claim called Three Dunes on the Arizona side of Lake Havasu which is the exact same beach that they used to camp on with their grandparents 35 years ago!

One thing I've always found about the river is how relaxed it forces you to be. We sat with our toes in the water soaking up the sun (which we haven't had much of in LA in a month or more), ate amazing food, played in a horseshoe tournament, slept under the stars and bathed in the lake. One night Damon's cousin took the flashlight and headed away from the beach toward the bushes. She let out a scream. Turns out she bumped into a 3 foot long diamond back rattle snake with 11 splines in its rattler. We had kids in our group so our host wasn't taking any chances and took it's head clean off with a shovel. I had no idea that they are blind and use infra-red heat sensors to detect harm.

It was a wonderful weekend full of sun and fun. Damon's cousin has a beautiful Master Craft with all the bells and whistles - skis, wake boards and even an air chair. Damon tried the air chair and got out of the water for a few seconds. Evidently all the rules of skiing need to be forgotten and a whole new way of thinking employed. (He did much better in actuality than the youngsters). Ten of us sat comfortably in the boat, destination: the famous Copper Canyon. Known for it's debauchery, CC is a cove where on holiday weekends so many boats would crowd in that you could literally walk from boat to boat. Since so many people raised hell the police have been barricading the cove on holidays for years. That day we were one of four boats in the cove. It was beautiful surrounded by harsh desert landscape and 40 foot cliffs that we jumped from. I had never been as far as Havasu so it was a real treat for me to float through the channel under the London Bridge which was sold to an American entrepreneur on the 70's and reconstructed brick by brick on site.

There is something very alluring about the desert and it's hard to leave in your wake. We were having such a good time that we decided to stay an extra day. It was a perfect weekend rekindling life-long relationships and making great new friends.