Friday, February 13, 2009

Not Quite Capturing the Flag

Day Forty Four
Kids have more holidays now than I remember having when I was in school.  Today they are off for Lincoln's Birthday and Monday they are off for President's Day.  Wasn't the point of President's Day combining Lincoln's and Washington's Birthday into one holiday?  Maybe Friday the 13th is now a holiday so kids don't have anything bad happen to them in school.

I took my son, Nik, and two of his friends, Eliot and Tyler over by Lake Cahuilla to climb this little peak with a flag on top.

The gully directly below the flag looked a bit steep for the guys so I opted to take them up one a bit to the south.

The boys flew up that thing.  I kept expecting them to tire out and slow down but it never happened.  It must be nice to have young legs.  The guys reached the top about 30 seconds before I did.

Unfortunately, getting to the flag itself was not going to happen from where we were.  To get over there we'd have to climb over some sketchy class 4-5 crumbling rock.  Even if the boys wanted to--and they didn't--I wasn't going to let them go for it.  This is as close as we're getting today.

Looking down, you can see The Quarry Golf Club and Lake Cahuilla.  Even if we didn't get to the flag, the view was still breathtaking.

The fellas quickly learned that going up is a LOT easier than going down.  They scoot down on very loose dirt rocks until they get to some more stable, larger rocks below.

Woo Hoo!  It sure feels good to be on solid ground again!

After getting down, we head over to the Fish Traps, near the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation, because the boys have never been there.  Eliot and Nikolas find a little crevice in the rocks there.

A nice bedrock mortar in the area near the fish traps.

Looks like we caught three large corvina in one of the many traps along the hillside.

The boys hold some of the many pottery sherds found near the Fish Traps.  They wanted to bring them home but I told them to leave them for others to enjoy.  Besides, what good is a broken pot?  When we get home, they mention that they are glad we left them there.  They think it will be cool for someone else to see them and have the same experience they did.

Flowers are starting to bloom all over.  It's going to be a spectacular year in the desert for wildflowers.

We had a great time even though we didn't capture the flag this time.  But I'm looking forward to the next Friday the 13th holiday and I'm sure the boys are, too.

1 comment:

msugarpants said...

Eliot was one of my students. I talked about the fish traps with that class all the time...even zoomed in on google earth. That particular pot sherd he is holding looks exactly like one i photographed....the one that seems glued together. So, as it turns out, someone did come to see them and enjoy them. Me :)

i did not find the metate, though. I would like to see that next time.