Yes, More Lake Havasu (02-18-14)

  Yes, yes, I know that a week has passed since we were in Lake Havasu City, but I wanted to post some of this information.  Our final hike in the area was to a mine..of course. Just getting to the trailhead involved driving off road for several miles. Our truck, and it’s driver, like to drive off road.

I took this picture a few weeks ago, near Quartzsite, on one of our other off road adventures.

So, once we dropped the truck off,, we headed to Iron Gate Mine.  We weren't really sure what they were  mining for, but it was a decent hike to get there, so we enjoyed it. Total hike- about 6 miles with almost 1000 feet of elevation gain.

Once we reached the entrance, Paul walked to the back of the mine- about 600 feet or so, and I waited for him outside, just the way I like it!

That night was the final night of fireworks.  The moon decided to join the competition, and I must say, it was a worthy competitor.

Some of the displays were really unique and different.  The brightness on the ground that looks like a fire- well, it IS a fire, and several times they had to delay the display in order to put out the ground fires.

Sometimes it seemed that the fires were started because  they couldn't quite reach the height they were looking for and the explosion would take place too close to the ground- like in this picture.








It was all great though, and since we had no where to go, we could relax and wait for the show to start back up again:


    
























From Lake Havasu we headed to Mesa Arizona.  We spent 3 days dusting the rig and going to dentist and doctor appointments. We both got a clean bill of health and need no dental work so we get to relax for a while.

A few days after we arrived, my brother Ray and sister-in-law Dawn flew in for a visit.  Dozer wasted no time staking out his spot on Ray’s lap.

More on that some other time…..

Lake Havasu, part 2 (02-16-14)

On the Water

Since most of the fireworks displays take place at night (although you’d be surprised at how many are actually set off during the day), it leaves us with all kinds of time to explore.  All 6 of us are boaters at heart, so we elected to take a jet boat tour of the area. I think we all like to go fast, too!

The tour guide gave us the history of the area, including this part of the Colorado River.  We saw some petroglyphs along the way but as hard as they tried to find some big horn sheep to show us, the best they could come up with was a few wild burros.









The tour included a stop for lunch at a waterfront restaurant, where the guys tried to make off with one of the barrels of rum.









 

The goofing around continued throughout the day.  We sure do have fun with this group!

We’ll take the High Road and you take the Low Road….

The hike of the day was to Lizard Peek.  We started off on the trail with Julie and Mike, but soon split off- they were taking the low road, to SARA’s Crack, and we were taking the high road- to the peak. The trail was about 4 miles long with 600 ft of elevation gain.

Along the way we found a cave, so naturally Paul had to stop and explore:

This trail is also called Picnic Table trail, because at the top of the mountain, there is a picnic table that was carried up the trail by hand, back in the 1980s.

Once again, the views were great- Lake Havasu on one side and the town on the other side. 

When we looked down the other side, we were surprised to see Julie and Mike walking along the lower trail. We whistled to them and took their picture.  They waved up to us and took our picture too.

We were also surprised to look far below and see the lizard that the trail is named for ( you can actually see it in the picture above, too). He’s about 80 feet long and was created in the 1980s.

Once we were back at the rigs, it was time for some relaxing before the fireworks show.

Here are some of the pictures I took that night.  Its very hard to get good pictures because the altitude varies every time they set one off, so I don’t know where to aim the camera.




 

Lake Havasu, AZ (02-14-14)

Our First Day here:

We wasted no time lollygagging around once we got to Lake Havasu City. I’ve never been here so I was anxious to see the London Bridge.

Just kidding with that picture- that’s not the real London Bridge, its just a small bridge in a nearby park.  This is the real London Bridge.

You might wonder why the London Bridge is in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Well, it’s like this.  This city was a planned community- the brainchild of Robert McCulloch, who built the city in the mid 1960s on the shores of Lake Havasu.  Unfortunately, neither tourists, nor potential residents were flocking to his new city, and he needed something that would attract them here.  He purchased the bridge from the City of London (it used to span the River Thames) and had it brought here. As a means to bring crowds of curious people to his city, it was successful.

Our first stop, of course, revolved around food.  We found a local restaurant with a view of the bridge, and headed there for lunch.

Since it was a brewery, serving many of their own beers, I decided to try a sampler.  Barley Brothers Brewery  brews everything from a Blonde Ale to an Oatmeal Stout.

Of course, I had my favorites, and contrary to the drunken depiction in the artfully arranged scene created by my friends, I had a fair amount of help drinking the beer!

After leaving the restaurant we toured the nearby island. (The one you get to via London Bridge.).  We were looking for a spot to put the dinghy in, in case we decide to use it. Along the way we encountered several lighthouses.

It turns out there are about 20 lighthouses along the shore. They are all functional navigational aids, and are all 1/3 replicas of full sized lighthouses in other parts of the country.  This particular one is a replica of a lighthouse in Minnesota, on Lake Superior.  The original one was decommissioned in 1969 but is lit every year on November 10th to commemorate the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. 

We didn’t get close to any other ones, but it would be neat if they each have their “own” story to tell.

Hiking SARA’S Crack

  Ok, don’t blame me….I didn’t name the trail. SARA stands for Special Activities and Recreational Area and it’s the name of the park that we are staying in here in the city.

There are quite a few hiking trails that originate in the park, so Paul and I decided to check out SARA’s Crack. The trail is about 6 miles long if you hike the whole loop.  It starts off in a wash, then goes through a slot canyon.

The most challenging spot to navigate has a ladder to help you out.  otherwise you could slide down if  you want to. We didn’t need to climb up, just down.

We love slot canyons, and I love bouldering, so this part of the trail was really fun.  Plus, it just felt good to be hiking again.

Once we came out of the canyon, it wasn’t long before we got a nice view of Lake Havasu.  If we had wanted to, we could have gone down to the water and gone for a swim.

Instead of walking back through the canyon, we made a loop and walked along a small ridge. By that time it was getting pretty hot and by the time we got home, it was in the 80s.  With the sun beating down on you, that’s pretty hot.

The reason we are here is for the fireworks convention, and so far, it hasn’t been a disappointment.  Each night has had something great to see.

What’s a Desert Visit Without a Visit to the Desert Bar? (02-12-14)

{You know you’re getting old when you write a blog post and then completely forget to post it. Or, Maybe I am just having too much fun? Anyway, this is from last week}

In the desolate outlying area of Parker Arizona lies Nellie E. Saloon, more commonly known as The Desert Bar. The road to get to the bar is not for sissies.

   It’s a long, five mile journey on a dirt road, with nothing between you and the bar but more desert.  In fact, there aren’t even telephone lines, because the bar runs completely on solar power.

So, why go?  The easy answer is…because it’s there.  

This trip to the bar is our third or 4th visit.  Every time we go, we have a “newbie” with us- someone who’s never been before- so that makes it more fun for us. Brad and Marilyn were the newbies on this trip.

The bar is situated on an old gold mine camp- the claim was named the Nellie E., hence the name of the bar. The original bar opened in the 1980s and has been added on to substantially since then.

It’s a mish mash of indoor and outdoor spaces- some covered and some not.

Even the ladies room is unique.  There are no windows here, the doors are heavy metal, and the wall is the side of a hill. Oh, and more often than not, there are men peeking in to get a look at this unique structure. 

The bar features live music in the afternoons.  Sometimes its even pretty good!  Due to the summer heat, the bar is only open in the winter months, and it’s only open on the weekend.  At about 11:30 am, there is a steady stream of cars heading down the dirt road to the bar.  Why so early?  The whole place closes at sunset, due to the nature of the location.

While we were there, my friend Carol Dwyer took some pretty awesome pictures of my cowboy for me!

Earp, CA/Parker, AZ (02-10-14)

We say we are staying in Parker Arizona, even though technically we are in Earp California, across the Colorado River from Parker.  There’s not much in the town of Earp, so even the RV park uses Parker TIme.  The problem is that there’s a time difference between the two towns. CA is in the  Pacific time zone and Arizona is Mountain TIme.  To complicate matters, I really have to use my watch to tell time, because our cell phones keep bouncing back between the two time zones, so we never know if they are accurate for what we need.


The town of Parker is a small desert town of about 3000 people.  There is one Wal-Mart and one grocery store that we could find.   Although the average temperature right now is a wonderful 74 degrees, I’d hate to be here in July, when that number skyrockets to 110. Once you leave the downtown area, the view quickly becomes a desert landscape, with blowing dust a daily occurrence.





What Parker does have, is the Colorado River.  The river water is crystal clear, beautiful, and unfortunately…frigid.  The temperature right now is somewhere in the 50s- definitely not warm enough for swimming!

As soon as we got here, Paul and I put the boat together, just to make sure we’d take advantage of the river.

 Our friends Carol and Steve also have a dinghy similar to ours, so the 4 of us took off down the river in search of adventure and….lunch.

There are several restaurants on the water-we chose the Roadrunner Bar, where we ate lunch on the dock overlooking the water.

There was enough activity on the water to keep our interest while we munched on lunch.  Whoever was towing this Para sailor kept teasing her by bringing her down close to the water. 

The scenery along the river is beautiful.  Strange to see the desert and the river meet.

The Colorado has several dams along its length, and the area we are in is about 15-18 miles long, from one dam to the next.  Our goal the first day was to see the dam upriver.

We came close, but had to “pull over” so Paul could do  some urgent automobile diagnosis for our daughter.  She’s having coolant issues with her car, so Paul checked it out with her on the phone. Aren't cell phones wonderful?!!