Spring Has Sprung (03-24-15)

There are many signs of spring here in Havasu, but probably my favorite is the flowers on the Prickly Pear.  I am always amazed at how gorgeous this cactus is when it is in bloom.










There are garage sales and home shows.  We learned a ton of stuff at the home show, some of which caused us to make some minor changes in the house plans.  We still don’t buy much at garage sales, but we did score a ladder that Paul has wanted for a long time, and got it at a great price.






The lake is more crowded, and the channel is crammed with boats, all blasting their own music.  Everyone seems to be having an awesome time.














And, of course, for us, Spring has sprung when the snowman no longer decorates the front of the truck:



The last few weeks have been very busy with house stuff, but we’ll be taking a break from all the running around because our son is flying in from Boston today!

House Update

We have arranged for the grading of our lot, which hopefully should happen soon.  Paul has placed his sign announcing our intentions to 

our neighbors.

We have been “pre-shopping”-making decisions on kitchen appliances and such, which needed to be done because the electrical and plumbing had to be decided.  We chose to go with an induction cook top.  Neither of us have ever used one, but we’ve heard they are pretty awesome.

All the major decisions regarding the house have been made.  The RV garage will be bumped to 18 ft by 65 ft, the back patio will be deleted (the pool people will put in Travertine tile) and the front patio will be expanded.  The laundry room will be bigger than the plans call for, but the guest rooms will remain the same size.  I would have liked them to be 2 feet bigger but couldn’t justify the expense.

Once we had put together our 3 page list of customizations, and gotten prices on them, we sat down with the builder and signed the contract!  We’ll still make tons of running changes, but the big stuff had to be decided before the plans were submitted to the City. Once they are drawn up, we’ll look at them one more time before the go in for approval.

In the meantime we can take a breather and enjoy our visit with Stephen!

500 Posts! (03-24-15)

This is my 500th blog post.  Will I continue, now that we will be settling down a little bit?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I really started the blog only to highlight the new places we were exploring.  It was never meant to be a diary of my daily life. I am toying with putting it on hiatus while we are in Havasu, stopping altogether, or just trying to do a weekly update about the house etc while we are sitting still, and write more frequently when we are on the road. 
I guess time will tell.

Lake Fun (03-10-15)

  Life finally slowed down enough for us to put the dinghy in the water and spend some time on the lake













It’s Spring Break time here in town so we meandered through the canal to check out the action.  There isn’t as much craziness as we thought there would be, but it’s early still.

There are definitely plenty of things to do both on the water and in the air.  I have never seen someone use a water jet pack before but it sure doesn’t look easy.

These Ultra Lites are a pretty common sight around the lake.

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There is even a movie being filmed in Havasu, although honestly, I have no idea if that’s what this filming was all about.  They could have just been interviewing spring breakers.

Once we had seen all the action, we headed south to explore some coves.






The  lake has many different looks, depending on how the sun is hitting it.

But whether it looks blue or green it sure is pretty.

We ended up lounging around in Copper Canyon for an hour or so, watching the swallows build their  nests.
















We decided that it would be smart to bring our hiking boots with us on our explorations, because there are plenty of places that we can explore on foot along the shore.





With temperatures headed into the 90s soon, I don’t see much hiking in our future, but we have been trying to ride our bikes every morning.  We were planning on joining a gym but our plans changed…..







One afternoon was spent looking at RV parks,  and we found one where we would like to spend the summer- although without fail- every time I said we were looking for a place for the summer, the reaction was “SUMMER??? Are you crazy???”  Oh boy, I can hardly wait. 

We decided on Havasu RV Resort as our temporary home.  This resort has several swimming pools and hot tubs- and a fully equipped fitness center. The lots are all owned by individuals, so we got a list of sites that would be available for rental for the summer.  The woman at the front desk was awesome- she pointed out which sites would be too hot due to the fact that the patio faces west.
After settling on a site we made arrangements with the owner. $450 a month will include both the rent, and the electric.  The electric will run $200-$300 a month, so really, the rent is $200. 
We won’t move there until late May or June.  In the meantime we hope to do some more exploring away from Havasu, and we have a rally to go to in Vegas!

House Update

If there were no telephone poles, the sunset view from our lot would be a little nicer, but still, it’s not too bad.
Not too much actual progress has been made on the house yet.  The survey is the first thing that needs to happen in order to move forward.  We did meet with the builder for a couple of hours, putting together a list of needs and wishes for our new home.





In the meantime we have been talking with pool companies and fencing contractors, educating ourselves so we can make better decisions on what we want.
An interesting side note about doing business in a “small” town.  Paul and I have both had to learn to “chill” and relax our east coast expectations on how fast things should happen.  The title company took forever (in our minds) to get things finished. Slowing down the pace will be tough for us but if we don’t, we’ll drive ourselves crazy.  There is a plus side to the small town atmosphere though.




  After meeting with Wes, the builder, we did some window shopping for appliances and came across the hot water heater we want- and it was on clearance.  We called Wes, and he suggested we just tell the store (Sears) to put it on his card.  We told the woman he said that and she didn't even blink.  She put it on his card and asked when we would need it.  When we said August, she said no problem- they’ll store it for him until then.  Wow.

Fulltimers No More (03-03-15)

It is with great surprise that I announce that Paul and I will no longer be full time RVers. How the heck did this happen??  Well, answering that question requires me to, in the words of Julie Andrews…”start at the very beginning”.

In 2009  we sold our house, boat, and most of our belongings, with the intent to “see the country” in our 5th wheel. We thought we’d travel for a year or two and see how we like it, while looking for the perfect place to retire (since then we have realized that there is no such place).  

  

Unlike many fulltimers, we did not sell all of our worldly goods- we put them in storage, where they (including a 22 ft jet boat) have sat for almost 6 years.

We’ve had a great time for the last 6 years and if you had asked us last year if we were ready to settle down, we would have said “Hell no”. Then this winter we started having conversations. Paul misses his tools and projects and wants a home base where he can put his creativity and engineering brain to work.   We really like Arizona in the winter- not Florida. 

We spend a large chunk of the winter just roaming around waiting for the weather to warm up- so we started talking a few months ago about finding a winter home somewhere in Arizona.  Someplace we can store all our stuff. We really like the Tucson and Mesa areas, but…….

….. we are boaters at heart- we met boating and have both owned boats most of our adult lives. We bought our first boat together soon after we were married.  In fact, at one point, we owned 6 boats!

If you want to boat in southwest, Lake Havasu is pretty much the only game in town if you are looking for consistent water levels.


Why is the water level in this lake so consistent? Lake Havasu is one of the major sources of water for southern California. 




There are straws that dip into the lake here and suck the water out, where it begins its 250 mile journey to Los Angeles. It wouldn't work if the water level fell below the straws.






Anyway, with all that in mind,  we booked an extended stay in the Lake Havasu City area.  In theory, we were seeing if we enjoyed the lake ( that took about an hour) and if we would enjoy “sitting still” for months at a time.  In reality, we started looking at houses as soon as we got to town. 




There are certain requirements that our winter home must have- one is a garage big enough to fit our toys.  There are lots of homes with RV garages here, but not as many with “mega” RV garages, big enough to fit the trailer and the camper- not to mention our jet boat.  Another requirement is parking, with hookup, for at least one, if not two, of our friends’ rigs.   The third requirement is a pool- or a yard big enough for one.


After weeks of searching, and not finding exactly what we wanted, our thoughts turned towards building new- so we started looking for appropriate lots.  Land is much sought after here in town.  With steep hills, not every lot is RV friendly, and being surrounded by Federal land means that future expansion will be limited.  After looking at many properties with a realtor, I decided to take a look on Craigslist.  And there I found the perfect lot.



Of course it’s hard to see in the pictures, but with almost a half acre, we should have plenty of room to do everything we want, and we even have a peek of the lake from the rear of the property.



Finding a builder was easier.  The idea to build was cemented in our brains when we walked into a model home for Seville Builders and really liked it.  So, here are some pictures of the basic house we will be building:


If it looks like the garage is bigger than the house- well, almost.  Ours will hopefully be even a little bigger, which will give us about 1800 ft of garage space with 1800 ft of living space.






We’ve been to the model a half dozen times already, taking notes for changes we want to make.





The house is a “split” floor plan with master bedroom on one side and two guestrooms on the other.




We really like the openness of the kitchen but will be tweaking where the appliances will go.






  

The main living area is very open and has a sliding door into the back yard.

Master bedroom opens to the back yard.

Master Bath with a walk in closet and a walk in shower.

We have no intentions of staying in Havasu year round. In fact, with average summer temperatures of 110* and above, we really don’t want to be here.  Except this summer.  We should be breaking ground in June and we want to be here to watch the house go up.

In general though, we plan on leaving once it warms up, using both the camper and trailer (not at the same time!) to continue our explorations of North America. We’ll also travel a fair amount in the winter, but more than likely it will be shorter trips, in the camper.

A Family Visit (02-27-15)

With an unceasing bombardment of snow, ice, and sub freezing temperatures in Boston, I guess it’s not a surprise that my brother Ray and his wife Dawn elected to fly out and visit us here in sunny Arizona.

The weather here wasn’t very cooperative either, but still, high 60s beats –10 any day, I guess.

 

After a day or so to unwind we started venturing out a bit. Shopping is always on the agenda so we visited the Shoppes at London Bridge.  We were highly entertained by the salesman in the hat shop, who insisted that we would buy the hat that he was demonstrating.  He said he didn’t know when we would buy, but eventually we would.  Well, he was right- my brother was sold on it and two days later he went back to buy it.






Soon enough we were all ready for a field trip.  We headed up historic Rte 66 to the old mining town of Oatman, Arizona. Oatman has been restored to feel like an old west town, right down to the wild burros roaming the streets. 

The wooden sidewalks were lined with restaurants, stores and the occasional musical cowboy.

Twice a day the streets erupt in gunfire as a (pretty cheesy) bank robbery takes place.  Afterwards, a donation hat is passed and the proceeds go to the Shriner’s, so that made it worth watching.















   

Lunch was at the Oatman Hotel.  The walls are lined with money, the food is just ok, and the live music was actually pretty good.

After lunch it was time to head down a gorgeous stretch of Rte 66 to the town of Kingman.

There are several small museums in Kingman.  The museum of Mohave history has an interesting display of Fulgurite.  Fulgurite is created when lightning, at a temperature above 3100*, strikes sand, fusing the grains of sand together.  The end result is a hollow glass tube.

The weather got better as the week went on so we looked for a way to spend some time on the water.  We still haven’t put the boat together, so we decided to take the ferry across the lake to the casino.

We weren't interested in gambling so we headed to the restaurant for a pretty decent lunch.  And what a view from the window!

It was definitely a gorgeous afternoon for a ride.  It costs $2 for a round trip ferry ride to the casino, and the ride is about 15 minutes each way. Just long enough to enjoy without getting bored.

Way too soon it was time to make the trek back up to Las Vegas to drop them off for their flight home.