Dream stream, oysters, snow

Right before I went to bed last night I noticed a few freshly gutted turkey remnants adjacent to where I had set up camp.  Some one had killed them that day and left the heads, guts, and plenty of feathers all over the side of the trail.  I wasn't too concerned since I was sleeping above the ground.  

There was a solid layer of ice encasing my truck an tent that morning.   I got out and sure enough something had come in the night and took every bit of the turkey remnants except for the feathers.  

I started heading for the dream stream the game Warden had told me about. It was about three mile connector stream between two resevoirs and apparently large cutthroat traveled up from the lower resevoir.  

I was driving through a cloud most of the way.  Then I appeared in a large plain like opening.  

And here is the dream stream.. 

Honestly, it was not how I pictured it the night before while going to bed.   To me, a great fishery is one not only full of stellar fish, but also surrounded by breath taking, eye candy, scenery.   Granted, it was super windy, cloudy, and snowing, so maybe the landscape encased by the elements was breath taking and just hidden from me.  Needless to say it was an amazing fishery!!!  Huge cutthroat stocked up in every hole!   

Because of the weather I was nymphing, with the wind gusts, that even proved to be a challenge.  Not to much of an obstacle though. 

I even caught a bunch of these mountain sucker fish things. 

Some larger than the cuttys.   

I ran into the only other fishermen on the river and chatted it up a bit.  They told me on any normal weekend day there would be over twenty trucks in parking lot.  I guess the weather scared then away, I'm not complaining.  

I left around one and was unsure if I should head south or west onto beuna vista.  I stopped in a very small town called Hartsel, where I ventured into a resturant/bar to grab some lunch.   Only two patrons were at the bar and seemed to be of the local variety.  The bar tender was a young bearded man wearing a civil war style cap, just like the one that you would often see me wearing in my younger days.  I asked if he had any food suggestions after I ordered a beer, and with out even thinking he said Rocky Mountain oysters...  Now I learned what these were when I was a kid, watching one of those food eating challenges on tv.   At first I thought it to be some kind of joke to play on the outa town folk.  Then the man to my right said they were his favorite and pointed to the plate in front of him.  They didn't look too bad.  Served on fries with a home made green chile sauce smothered on top.   The bartender then proclaimed "they're harvested locally!", and I decided it wouldn't be an adventure with out diving into the local flavors and placed my order.   It truly was a pretty delicious meal.  They were cut in strips and deep fried so I guess they couldn't taste that bad!   

After hearing that beuna vista had already gotten a couple inches of snow, I decided to drive due south towards canon city.  

And that is what I drove into.  White out conditions most of the way.  I think my bike hated it more. 

The storm wasn't letting up so I said the heck with it, got on interstate 25 and headed to New Mexico.  

After checking my map with the weather maps, I decided on sin city New Mexico, Las Vegas!!   Not much to my surprise, this was nothing like the Las Vegas everyone knows.   There was one camp ground on a resevoir near by and I decided to check it out.  The primitive camping was in a field, cost $10, and was not shelted at all from the blasting wind.  I set my sites on the national forest to the west of town.  Just before you get into the canyon you pass into a town called montezuma which holds an amazing castle like building that is now a united world college, what ever that means.  Here is a link to some pics http://www.stephencodrington.com/UWC/USA.html 

I drove up the step winding canyon that did hold a fairly size able stream in it.  But the road took me higher and higher away from it.  Every spot I thought I could sneak down had no trespassing signs.  When I could see the the stream it looked as though it must be some ones private fly fishing playground.   I was in no mood to get shot at or arrested so I carried on up the canyon looking for a camp spot.  For being a national forest, it had no trails or dirt roads.  This made camping seem impossible.  Finally a few miles in I called it quits and camped on a small pull off on a side road.   

I awoke to the fluffy stuff. 

I was totally warm and dry in the tent all night!  I certainly didn't want to get out of it though.  I suddenly remembered passing a hot spring in montezuma on my way up, so I packed up and headed down the snowy canyon to get in the water!  

It was totally empty, not surprising being 7:30 in the morning.  So I put on my swim trunks and hustled across the snowy road armed with my soap and shampoo. 

Since this was such a small town I think only locals ever used them. A bonus, it was totally free!!  The top pool you see in the pic was so hot I couldn't even acclimate my legs to it, so I just stayed in the second pool.   First bath in five days was a very refreshing thing.  

After that I loaded up and hit the road.  I knew this was to be a big driving day since I was going to shoot right across New Mexico, into the Texas panhandle, then through Oklahoma.   An area I had planned not to stop in and for good reason; there really isn't anything there. 

I did stop in armadillo at the Cadillac ranch, as per my dad's suggestion.  I left my mark on the first car.  

In this 14 hour driving spree from New Mexico to Arkansas I had a few hiccups. The first being in New Mexico when I locked my only keys in the car.  I had mentally prepared for this before I left and purposely left the rear sliding window unlocked so I could climb through from the truck bed if I did happen upon this scenario.  The thought was easier than the actual process.  My truck was loaded to brim. So I spent a good ten minutes unpacking stuff so I could crawl up to the window.  But the placement of my tv prevented my body from fitting through.  So I put some inside out gorilla tape donuts on my spinning rod and some how managed to stick my keys and get them out. It truly was a miracle.  

Next came about thirty minutes after I left gas station.  There was a very strong north east wind blowing, making driving pretty difficult.  All the sudden my truck started to bump and severely slow down. I looked in my mirrors and noticed my tent cover flopping around.  I pulled over to find out the years of weather elements and this excessive wind, had shredded the top middle of the cover.  So again I broke out the gorilla tape and really taped her down.  This lasted til my destination in Arkansas.  I will have to think of an easy repair for this later on in the week. 

Now I am near ozark arkasanas.  Plan on heading into the ozark mountains in the morning and fishing the white river. But I am setting my alarm for early in the AM so I can see the lunar eclipse because it is a beautiful, clear night here!