Late Winter, Late Spring (05/05/22)

You will notice that it is now June, and I am writing about February- April.  I am not a fan of blogging much when we are at the house, so I put it off, and off, and off, and here we are in June. The problem is, now that Paul and I are on the road for the summer I WANT to write about what we are seeing- but I have to finish other posts first. I also discovered part of my problem- ever since I got my iPhone Pro, I take most of my pictures with my phone.  That means I have a LOT more pictures to sort through in order to find pictures for my blog.  Very annoying, so, this summer I am back to using my camera. Anyway, to continue:

This year, winter lasted a very long time before springing into spring- the weather was cool, and windy almost every day.  That meant no heating the pool until later than usual, and very few days on the boat.

We did manage to have a good time though- here is what I remember of it:

February brought the fireworks extravaganza, back after a two year hiatus due to Covid.  We booked our usual RV site, and spent a lot of time watching the fireworks.

Our friends Debbie and Al, from Michigan brought their RV and visited for a while…

Our daughter Jess, who lives in L.A. has asked us for years to come to L.A. for her birthday but we hate driving in L.A. so much, we always put it off.  Well, this year I found an RV spot right on the beach, available for her birthday weekend.  We took the truck camper and towed the Jeep, which made it a little easier to deal with L.A.. Once we had our site, we told her the weekend was hers to plan and we would be up for almost anything. 

Our first night there, we went to one of her favorite restaurants (one with the strangest items on the menu, but then, I am not from L.A.) 

 

We shared several plates and had a glass or two of wine.

Saturday was “the big day”. Her 32nd birthday, and the party that goes with it.  She wanted to have a bonfire party on the beach behind our camper. She invited about a dozen friends, and the original idea was that we would make dinner and margaritas.  As used to entertaining as we are, feeding 15 or so people  100 yards from our rig made no sense.  So, we did make the margaritas, but we ordered food from a Mexican restaurant.  The weather was perfect for a beach party and everyone had a great time.

The highlight of my weekend was meeting this guy.  Noah was 9 months old at the time, and SO adorable. He had never touched sand before, so I was fascinated watching him learn about it.  At first he tried to get it off his fingers, but within minutes, he was sifting the sand through his fingers and watching what happened.

He also enjoyed playing cornhole.

After sunset, Jess  and her friends left to go out and hit the bars, and Paul and I got to relax.

Sunday was a quiet day- we spent some time at her apartment, where Paul could handle some “Daddy Do’s” and then we had dinner at the camper before leaving for home the next day.

There is always something going on in Havasu, and March was no exception.  In addition to our usual outings, we attended the rodeo for the first time.  Quite fun!

We also attended Mustangs VS Camaros at a local restaurant.  The owner of the restaurant drives a 1968 SS Camaro and invites all Mustang an Camaro owners to come show off their vehicles.  

Of course we had to bring Thelma. 

Paul and I took the camper and Teryx to Alamo Lake State Park- its only about 3 hours from Havasu and has some really cool off road trails.  We spent a fun few days taking the Teryx through some slot canyons. 

At one point we got into a bit of a pickle, trying to head up a steep incline.  We had to back down, which put the Teryx on very uneven ground. So, it was time to get out the winch, to make sure we didn’t tip it.

When the canyons got too narrow, we explored them on foot.

In April we started making tentative plans for the summer, and it didn’t include heading to the east coast, so I flew out for a week to spend time with my son and my siblings. I do love flying into Boston.

Stephen and I took some day trips to our favorite places- including Gloucester- where we used to spend a lot of time when we had our boat in MA.

Easter Sunday was spent with my siblings- this was my first time seeing them since Covid.

Back home, it was Jess’s turn to visit us.  She brought several of her friends for a party weekend at the PPP.

We ended April with a trip to Fresno CA, where Paul went to college, and is still friends with many of his fraternity brothers.  We were celebrating 75 years of Sigma Chi, and 100 years of Sigma Tau, the original fraternity.   We had a great time celebrating with them.

And then it was May- but May deserves its own post.

Late Winter of Early 2021 (04-22-21)

First of all, overall, this was a crappy winter, weather wise.  The wind literally never quit. Seems like it was blowing 20-30 mph almost every day. That can make temps in the low 60s seem really cold.

At least we have numerous places we can congregate when the wind is blowing- sometimes the best place is the front patio….

 and other times it’s the back deck, with the screens down and the heater on.

It’s great that the sunsets are not affected much by the wind, and can be amazingly spectacular here in Arizona.

Weather aside, we always find fun things to do:

February brings with it the Super Bowl, and this year we had the pleasure of entertaining our friends Deb and Al, from Michigan. Deb is a diehard Chiefs fan, and of course I am a diehard Patriots/Brady fan.

Tom and I were both smiling at the end of the game! 

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to get to commemorate the win, but I finally made a choice.

The guys always have projects to work on, and they are great at helping each other getting them accomplished. Many hands make light work, as they say. And yeah, I guess we are spoiled a little, that we could set the saw up outside and use it there.

Keeping mostly indoors, “puzzling” became a favorite pastime, as did cooking, eating, and drinking.

When our favorite wine went on clearance, we all bought some.

We planned and cooked lots of meals together, with our most complicated one being the Mexican dinner we made.  

We tried 3 new recipes- tamales, made from scratch, a Mexican salad, and Mexican rice. Other than the salad, which was just ok….everything else was awesome!

Many times the guys would help us out with meals, especially if it involved deep fat frying, or using the grill.

Towards the end of February, Paul turned 65. We had planned on having a huge party for he and Mike this year, but Covid caused us to cancel. 

Our daughter Jess did come, and brought her boyfriend, Mike, so we still had a great time. 

She is always fun to have around.

Taking advantage of a nice weather day, we drove down to Quartzsite to go on an ATV ride with Deb and Al, before they left for home. The last time we were on this trail, we were in our Jeep and it took us almost an hour to navigate this one particular turn.

Much easier in our Teryx!

 

Ride over, it was nice enough out to grab a burger at Beer Belly's . It definitely feels good to be able to go out to eat once in a while.

October in Havasu (11-18-19)

October in Havasu is a busy time, but then again, Havasu has something going on almost all the time. Not everything is of interest to us, but there is still plenty to keep us busy. After a thorough cleaning of the house and camper, after our summer adventures, we were ready to venture out.







Events in the first week or so of October included boat races in the channel, the World Finals Jet Ski competition, concerts in the park and of course the usual car shows.

We also found out about a Meet Up on the lake of owners of Avalon boats, the brand that we own. Unlike last October, the weather this year was perfect for boating so we were happy to be on the lake as much as possible.

We spent a fun few hours chatting with other owners. We were all surprised at how much we have in common.  In addition to boating, most of us have RVs and desert exploration toys, and most of us are Elk members.

As happy as we were to be home, after a long and busy summer, you’d think that we would hunker down and stay put.  But we didn’t. Paul needed his yearly dermatologist appointment, which is in Fresno CA,  so we packed up the mustang and went on a road trip to see our friends in central California.

I think I apologized 4 times to our friends for making this a last minute trip, thereby torpedoing any plans they already had for that weekend. 

They claimed they didn’t mind, and we sure did have fun relaxing at Kirk’s cabin, helping with various projects,  and hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

On the way back to the city, I was all done with the fun Paul was having driving on the curvy mountain roads, so I rode with Karen and let Kirk be his co-pilot.












Note to self for next time- the drive to Fresno is almost 7 hours.  It would be better if we had more than 3 days to spend there.  But this time around we were expecting company back home the following weekend, so we hightailed it out of CA back to Havasu.

We were finally going to get to see our daughter Jess, who lives in L.A.  She took the weekend off to come out to see us.

Our other guests, Sharon and John, were due to arrive the day after Jess got here, but with the weatherman calling for perfect boating weather, we convinced them to come a day early, so we could all go out on the water, with both the boat and the jet ski.

As always, all too soon Jess left (at least she is coming back for Thanksgiving!) and we had one more day with John and Sharon before they took off for their next destination.
Wanting to give them a well rounded idea of activities at the PPP, we took them for a ride into the desert.

With the house quiet again, we went back to working on our projects. The water in Havasu is very hard, so every once in a while we have to drain the pool and put in fresh water. This time we decided it was also time to clean the tile of the calcium build up.  

It was a lot of work, but the end result was worth it.

The end of October brings London Bridge Days, when everyone celebrates the attraction that helped grow Lake Havasu into a town- the London Bridge.

The highlight of the festivities is a parade down Main St. This year’s theme was “life in the desert. With numerous floats, bands, and performers,  it was a lot of fun.