Homolovi State Park, Winslow, Arizona
The proud and arrogant man – “Mocker” is his name; he behaves with pompous pride. ~ Proverbs 21:24
Blaine found water!
Right here in the Winslow area – just 5 miles from our campground! But . . . . in order to get there, we had to drive 12.5. Still. A 20-minute drive was soooo worth it!
We spent four hours of our day kayaking in Clear Creek through a canyon at the McHood Reservoir Park. You can paddle three miles before the path comes to a stop due to stuff growing across the water. The creek continues, but boaters cannot. At least not unless a flash flood comes through and raises the water level.
Blaine had read two specific things about this canyon. One was that there’s an old pump house that was built by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1898, to suck water up from the canyon for the trains. You can’t see the actual pump house from the river, but we encountered other remnants. I’ll point that out when we get to them.
It was a perfect day! And the scenery was perfect, too!
There were a few people entering, or preparing to enter the water when we arrived, but they either went really slow behind us or ventured in the other direction, because we hardly saw anyone until our way back. As we returned, we began seeing more and more people in the water, but only two small motorized boats. Everyone else was paddling.
Pretty strange looking!
Too bad my head’s there, or it would’ve looked even stranger. lol!
And look at the color! They’re red!!
The other ones were fuscia.
We really enjoyed watching them – skimming the water, building their nests, catching bugs . . .
You can see, some nests aren’t quite finished yet.
Looks a lot bigger, doesn’t it??
I don’t know much about fishing, but what happens if you catch 8 at once?
The other thing Blaine learned, was that there are still petroglyphs in one spot on the canyon wall. Pretty cool! And pretty amazing that every time we come across these things, they look pretty much the same.
This marks the completion of two of our three miles up into the canyon.
We were beginning to wonder if we’d have to stay in the boat,
because there were no places to get out.
Just rock walls.
It felt good to stand for a few minutes! 🙂
That’s a lot of water!
This is the area where they were most active, so we sat and bird-watched for a few mintues.
So interesting, the way God created these creatures!
We were getting close to being back, when we heard a motor and saw a couple on a jet ski flying up the river towards us. He stopped close to us, and I commented that there were a lot of kayakers ahead of him and he might want to slow down. Of course, he just ignored me, but Blaine wasn’t too pleased that I might’ve upset him. Oh well. Sometimes the mom in me just can’t help it. 😊
Before we left the water, we noticed a group of four on the opposite side, standing on a rock. And then, as we passed by, one jumped in the water! We turned around and watched as a second followed suit, leaving one more guy and a girl. It took a few minutes, but the guy finally got up the nerve and dove in. Unfortunately for him, he lost one of his shoes when he hit the water. Hopefully they were old ones.
They’re waiting for that red canoe in the middle to get past them.
We’d given up on the girl taking the leap and were starting to turn around, when she jumped. Not very graceful, but she did it – feet-first and flailing arms and legs. 😊
Very shortly after that, we discovered a very large crowd had gathered in our absence! We couldn’t believe how many kids were congregating along the water’s edge! And as you’ll see in one picture, there was a steady line joining those already on the rocks. Crazy! We were glad to be done. 😊
This is a picture of the “lake”. Not much there. . .
We had such a wonderful day today!
It’s not the Grand Canyon, but it’ll do for now. We can always imagine we were kayaking the Colorado! Minus the rapids we’ve seen pictures of. And I don’t have to pitch and sleep in a tent at the end of an exhilarating, bone-drenching, hardworking paddle.
I like that.