The Chuckwalla Dive

  This little dive really turned into an oddly culinarical adventure.  Read on and you will soon understand why.  The fish were all over the place in the shallows and most of my dive was spent in swimming around with them as my brother explored a bit lower, searching the murky depths.  He found a black hills gold ring, 20 dollars and a big fat Chuckwalla that'd apparently fallen from the cliff face just above us, landing right into our dinner pot.  This may sound gruesome but if they were good enough for the natives out here then why not?!  Besides, the lizard was fresh and just about a foot long.  Shortly he was bagged and put on ice in our cooler right next to the sodas.  This gastronomic adventure was quite interesting; boil, slice, gut, peel, fry and finally......eat!  What the Hell were we thinking?!

  Chuck (lizard) softened up quite nicely in the pot and my brother did the cooking.  I watched as he slit the little beast from throat to butt, right down the middle.  It was quite a sight indeed and the entrails were really interesting to look at and poke around.  Inside the stomach, there were tiny yellow flowers.  I've never seen a Chuckwalla from the inside out.  Well, now I have and the air bladders on it's sides were pretty big, stretching all the way down the entire length of his body except of course for the tail.  With the gutting done, my brother peeled back his belly skin and fried him up. 

  The smoke and odor weren't all that pleasant and it definitely smelled like raw, dead meat.  The longer Chuck (the lizard, remember?) fried , the more tolerable the atmosphere became as the smoke and now cooking lizard blended.  Soon we peeled off the tough skin and dug in.  It was sort of weird at first and up until that point, I'd never peeled a lizard before!  The meat was tough and chewy but not all that disagreeable.  It tasted somewhat like fish blended with chicken and you'd have to bag three or four of them to make a substantial meal but it was well worth it!  I've always wondered what Chuckwallas tasted like anyway!