I was newly married and working at a Honda Dealership here in Orange County. My new bride also worked at the same dealership. I had an idea on how to spend our July 4th weekend by going to a place out on the Colorado River near Yuma, Arizona called Senator’s wash It was a 2+mile-long reservoir adjacent to the Colorado River with a dam on one end and a long dirt access road on the southern side where camping was allowed.
I had been to this place several years prior with a group of people who were doing product testing on the original Kawasaki Jet Ski and wanted a place off the grid to hide out while testing and photographing the jet ski in a way to make it look like the latest new thing to come onto the American marketplace for boaters and thrill seekers. I was invited to do the photography and was told that my photos were to be given to Boating Magazine with a small write-up on the product. It turned out to be my first published photo in a national magazine. Most of my memories of that trip were foggy since there was a lot of heavy drinking that weekend but I did remember taking a dare to ride a very small one person race boat around the reservoir and actually did it, only to find out from the guy who owned the boat, that his best friend died on it the summer before after I had taken my crazy white knuckled ride.
As newlyweds, we didn’t have much money nor camping equipment, so we used an inflatable velvet covered queen sized mattress to sleep on. We had a small gas stove and a couple of other camping items to make this trip bearable for my wife and Duffy my Golden Retriever dog. Our car was a tricked-out VW Rabbit with Recaro Seats, Body Flairs, rear window louvers, spoiler and a cool rag top. The back seat folded up and there was just enough room for two smallish people to sleep inside. I have to say it was a cool looking car back in the day with a custom gold metallic paint job.
The weather that weekend was hot as hell and typical for the area we were visiting. When we arrived at the campground there were several families there partying and having a good time swimming in the lake. I backed my car up close to the lake. There was a Mexican family who had brought a small sixties era boat that was beached on shore next to us. My dog immediately headed for the water since that’s what retrievers like to do and the kids next door found a new friend to hang out with. The wife and I took turns blowing up the air mattress and eventually got it inflated then took to the water for some heat relief. Seeing how my dog was being taken care of by our neighbors, my wife and I decided to lay out on the mattress and were floating around close to shore. Everything was great till the afternoon winds came up and started blowing us out further and further from shore. We laid on our stomachs and paddled the raft as hard as we could, but couldn’t get any closer to shore. I would have to say we were approx. halfway across the width of the lake when a group of fishermen spotted us waving our arms for help and came to our rescue. They dragged our raft and us back to shore. Boy, were we grateful for their kindness. Being out there for such a long time really took a toll on both of us as we ended up getting sunburnt badly on our backs.
It was getting close to sunset and my wife had brought some Hungarian Goulash that she had made the night before to eat for supper. We fed ourselves and Duffy who scarfed up the goulash like no tomorrow then sat down in our beach chairs at the edge of the water. Still feeling the effects of being sunburned on our backs made sitting in the beach chairs very uncomfortable as well as being sleepy from the goulash which felt like lead in my tummy. I had an idea to get some relief from the sunburn pain by lying on the air mattress on the edge of the water and tying a cord to my belt loop then to the bumper of my car so we didn’t end up with a repeat of the afternoon occurrence. My wife joined me and it didn’t take long before the both of us had fell into a deep sleep.
I woke up expecting to be next to shore and my car, but when my eyes regained focus our raft was in open water with the dam a couple hundred yards in front of us and we had floated the entire length of the reservoir approx. two miles from where we were camping and on the wrong side of the lake. I woke my wife and told her not to freak out and what had happened while we were sleeping. We both were on the verge of panicking but kept our heads and started to paddle once again on our stomachs across the face of the dam to the shore. What truly is miraculous is neither of us fell off the mattress while we were sleeping especially because my wife was a poor swimmer who could barely swim from one end our swimming pool to the other side!
We were both exhausted but were really grateful to be alive then pulled the mattress out of the lake and sat down on it hugging each other and trying to figure out what happened to the cord tied to my belt loop idea not working. Off in the far distance I could see a tiny light on the shoreline which I surmised was my gas lantern that I lit before getting on the raft. My wife and I carried the inflated mattress on our heads several miles along the dirt road back to our campsite while barefoot.
When we came into view of our car, my dog was sitting next to the lantern wagging his tail and had a great big dog smile happy as heck to see us again. I looked at my watch in the car it was 3:25 AM. We were both exhausted, sunburnt, feet raw from walking on a dirt pebble-lined road but happy to be alive. As the sun rose up that morning, our Mexican neighbors greeted us and asked if we enjoyed our romantic moonlight boat ride? My answer was I was glad my raft wasn’t named the Titanic. We packed up our camping gear and gratefully left to go home. I wish there was a moral to this story but honestly, I just can’t think of one other than I can't tie good knots.
