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?!!