My vacation to keep my job turned into the vacation I never wanted to take

 Long story short I took a 2 week vacation to let some points drop off at work. The first part of the vacation went as planned, a lot of hunting for turkey, which I did not get. Then some house work (never enough time to get all that done) and werkin on Bill's tree issue's, it only took me a day to get them cut up and limbed. 

Then I got a call from my buddy Jake and he said he had to go to work in AZ for a couple days. He knew I had family over there and he asked if I wanted to go along. 

Reluctantly I said yes. 

My car wanted me to go as much as I wanted to go, the serpentine belt broke half way to Jake's. He had to come and get me, he hooked up the battery pack, tied the hood down and rolled on to the house. 

It's still there.

I hit you with the MANY pics I took first.

This was the way out.

View on the patio of Rick and Beth's house.

Love Birds

Vermilion flycatcher

On the way to go golfing .... 5 miles away... in a golf cart.

Ready to go

Rick organizing the crew, it take's a minute

I caddied but Rick golfed along with Tim, Mike, and Gary. A really good group of guys.

Only had to hit out of the water once.

This golfer made completely out of golf heads and shafts

not sure why I took this but nice house and landscaping

Love birds hanging out in a trimmed palm tree

There were Quail everywhere, most of the time they stayed on the other side of the golf course. They did come over one of the days I was there. It was pretty cool to see them fly in from the other side of the golf course into this tree. Rick decided to get as close as he could, he got right under the tree but they really didn't like that at all.

The big dog is Bruno he's my cousin Kyle's dog, Great Dane/Mastiff mix, just a big sweetie. The bulldog is my second cousins dog and I can't remember his name but Rick says he reads these so maybe he'll shoot me the name and I can update this

Bruno "playing" with Rick

I wanna play

Arizona cottontail.... psycho hybrid cottontail if you ask me. I expect it to turn and look at you and have red eye's.... maybe that's just me.

Quail in back of Rick's house, they were everywhere... really

How could the day be bad with a morning like this

As it turns out it only costs a nonresident 20$ to go quail hunting for a day. So we dusted off Rick's guns, ammo, pants, a slightly outdated road map, and with a little bit of knowledge from one of Rick's friends, Rick, we headed into the bush to try our luck.  The crew was Rick, Cooper (my 2nd cousin) and myself. Remember when I said the Quail were everywhere? Apparently that was only in-town. With very little working knowledge of Gamble Quail we kinda went for a walk in the desert with guns.

It went kinda like this.....

I had to borrow a pair of Rick's boots that he had and were brand new. I tried to shove my size 10s into a pair of size 9? when I shoved my foot into it the sole marked the floor. The sole immediately started to disintegrate.

This is how they returned after 5 hours of walking.

Can you spot the lizard?    I'll give you a hint left of center up from the bottom.

We did see alot of lizards and some type of ground squirrel, along with a couple rabbits and a jackrabbit as big as a VW. But it took the Cadillac to flush our first covey of 14 birds. After they got flushed we bumped them a couple more times only to get more walking in and no birds. The most important thing while hunting in the desert is to STAY AWAY FROM THE CACTUS. At least that was my experience, I did get a jumping cactus in my thumb but that was my only run in with cactus. I watched every step and didn't walk through any bushes, there were easy paths through the cactus where we were.

Yep that's how my Uncle rolls.... just pack into the caddy and head for the mountains

Well, we hunted until sunset but didn't get a bird, super good day hunting in AZ for the day. Big shoutout to Rick for directions, my uncle Rick for taking us and Cooper for coming with on our walk through the desert.

 

This was Sunday and Jake wanted to leave early Monday morning so when we got back to the house I packed up my gear, ate and Rick dropped me off at Jake's air bnb. 

Here are some pics of the ride home....

Mule deer

Antelope

Antelope

Merriam turkeys

Mule deer

Mule deer

Mule deer with turkeys in the background

Merriam turkeys

 The drive went good and everybody got some wheel time and nappy time. 

All in all it was a super good time hanging out with Rick and Beth. The scenery of AZ was interesting, it was neat to see the desert and the mountains. I never knew there were mountains in AZ. Maybe at some point I'll go back after Rick gets a handle on the whole quail hunting thing, maybe.

We got home Tuesday afternoon and after I got situated I made plans to go hunting, so I went to bed. I got up Wednesday and headed out to a local lake. The day was pretty good, cold, cloudy and a small amount of snow. There were some birds around along with some geese. I ended up with 2 redhead hens, and a hen and drake mallard.

Pretty good couple of weeks and first day of waterfowl for me.