The Holidays 2018

By mid December we were starting to get an idea of who was going to be able to make it to our house for the holidays.

The first to arrive were Brad and Marilyn- they are Canadians who travel in the U.S. during the winter. As soon as they arrived we visited our new favorite restaurant- El Paraiso. 

Great food, great margaritas, and best of all, you can sit outside and watch the sunset while you eat.

As the days went by, more people arrived and we enjoyed the sunsets in the back yard. With the cooler weather upon us, our new propane fire pit saw a lot of use.








Speaking of cold weather, this particular winter was horrible. Cold and rainy way too often.

Don't let this picture of our crazy Canadian friend fool you.. it wasn't that warm out!

It was so rainy that I was shocked to wake up one morning and see fog out the window...

The outdoor temperatures were sometimes close to freezing, and I have never seen the pool temperature so low.

Anyway, there were still plenty of days with decent weather, just not as many as we are used to having.  Ideally we had wanted to take the boat out sometime around Christmas, since none of our friends had been on it.

The weather didn't cooperate, but we don't give up easy, and instead had our Christmas Eve happy hour on the boat.....in the garage!

Maybe Christmas Eve happy hour on the boat will become a new tradition. We can add it to the already established tradition of the annual Yankee Swap. 

We sure do manage to laugh a lot!
















Of course, soon after Christmas comes New Years. Some of our friends (and our daughter Jess) had to leave before that, but others arrived, so we still had a full house-just the way we like it!











We started off the new year with quite a (never to be repeated) bang. Lets just say we should have been able to get our money back for the fireworks.

On days that aren't actual holidays, we still find plenty to keep us busy...

We really enjoy sharing meals, and with everyone pitching in, its so easy and so much fun.

In the evenings, whoever is so inclined will either head to the hot tub, or play Farkle or poker.

Day trips can include hiking, a trip to the Desert Bar or a visit to the old mining town of Oatman.

And of course, when we don't feel like cooking, we can always head to El Paraiso!

And then, it was 2019.....finally.

November into December 2018

November was a relatively quiet month for us- we did some stuff around the house, and our daughter Jess came to visit for a few days.

That was actually pretty "exciting".
She had never been to the Desert Bar but had been hearing about it for ages, so we decided to take the Teryx there, using the back trail. Sadly, as you can see from the picture, we tipped it over.

Luckily no one was hurt and we continued on our way to the bar for lunch.
















After that excitement, things calmed down for a week or so.  As Thanksgiving approached we realized that other than Jess, we wouldn't be having any company for the holiday. That's unusual, and we got to thinking that there was no point in staying home if that was the case.

We threw out some ideas of where to go, and landed on Joshua Tree National Park.  Jess had never been there, it is only about 2 hours from her and about 3 from us. So, we packed up the trailer and took off.

We had cooked the turkey before we left, and decided to have our family's traditional Thanksgiving dinner- Turkey Enchiladas. We had a great day and had even found a spot in an RV resort with 4 pools and 6 hot tubs!







Joshua Tree National Park is obviously named for the unusual Joshua Trees that live inside the park- but I think its misnamed.

It should be called Boulder Park because the real fun of the park is climbing all over the boulders!

Joshua Tree is a small park and isn't as well known as some other parks, so it never dawned on us that it would be so popular the day after Thanksgiving!  We waited in line for over an hour and a half just to get into the park!

 We decided we might as well wait it out, even though we knew that parking would be an issue. Instead of parking at the hiking trails, which was our original idea, we parked along the roadway and explored the boulders nearby.













It wasn't exactly the outing we had hoped for, but we had a great time, and got to show Jess at least a little bit of the park.







Once Jess left for home, we had no intention of doing the same. Since we were out and about already, we kept going.

Our next stop was El Paso, to check in on Paul's mom.  Since it was a two day drive, we broke the trip up with a stop in Tucson, where we met up with our friends Dave and Nancy.

 After a couple of days with Paul's mom, we headed for our next destination- Bisbee, Arizona.











Our objective was to tour the copper Queen Mine.  We have toured quite a few mines in the past...so many that I could probably have passed on this one, but off we went.

After donning our hard hats, we boarded a small train that took us 1500 feet into the mine.

The tour was actually very interesting, and was conducted by someone who used to work for the mining company.

When I think I am going to be bored, I try to pay attention and find one or two bits of information I can come away with on a tour. I wasn't at all bored on this tour, but still, my favorite take-away was how they would use dynamite to blow an area into rubble. They set an ever increasing circle of dynamite sticks, and connect them together with fuses.
When they are done, they light it and walk around the corner. They don't have to go too far, because the way it is set off, it implodes, instead of exploding. They also needed to stay nearby so they could count the explosions and make sure there wasn't a misfire.

Once we were back on the surface, we drove past the mine on our way to our next destination.










Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument has been on our bucket list for quite a while, and we finally made it there. This national monument is in southern Arizona and shares a border with Mexico.
Pictured is the Organ Pipe Cactus that it is named for.








Our plan was a simple one. Relax, explore, relax some more. And that's what we did. There are two scenic drives- we drove both of them. There are numerous hiking trails.... and most had incredible views.....

At night the weather was perfect for sitting by a campfire watching the sun set.

Once we had had our fill, we headed back home.

And yes, I am on a mission.

October Happenings (10-2018)

Very soon after arriving home in October, Paul's  brother Tom and his wife Sue stopped by for a few days. They are now retired and have a motor home. We look forward to meeting up with them along the way!


Of course we made time for a trip to the Desert Bar before they left....

Our daughter Jess moved into a new apartment in Los Angeles, in October, and needed some of her household items that were being stored at our place, so I took a short road trip and met her about halfway,  where we transferred her stuff from my car to hers. There may have been some shopping done as well, haha.

Back at home, the hummingbirds were hungry enough to eat from the handheld feeder. Pretty cool.

The weather wasn't great in October in Havasu... we did manage to take the boat out, and hike a few times, but it wasn't too long before we decided to go on a road trip.

We loaded up the truck camper and headed to California.

The  route we chose was fairly remote, with few campgrounds along the way. In fact, most of the towns we were going through didn't have any television reception, which we considered vital that particular night. We called places until we found a campground that had cable (only in the clubhouse, but that worked) so we could watch the Red Sox win the World Series.

Our first stop was  Giant Sequoia National Monument, where we walked the Trail of 100 Giants.













This wasn't a particularly long trail but it was an interesting one.















Our second stop was Sequoia National Park.  Here we spent several days exploring and hiking. We found it astonishing that neither of us had spent any time here!

We couldn't have asked for better weather, and one of the perks of traveling in the truck camper is that its easier to fit into campgrounds that are IN the national parks, which really adds to the experience.

Many of the trees and groves here have been given names...The Senate, the House, etc. And of course, General Sherman tree....the Largest tree, by volume, in the world.  Note the car in the picture of this tree.

As impressive as the trees were, the trail with the best view was the granite dome called Moro Rock.

This trail wound around the granite, all the way to the top. Or, at least I assume it goes all the way.  The trail got a little narrow for me, and the railing was a little low for my taste,  so I waited for Paul just below the crest.

Even driving around the park was interesting...

 After a few days of hiking, we moved on to our final destination- Fresno, and the fraternity brothers.

Kirk was building a hot tub shack at his cabin in the mountains, so the guys got together to help, while the girls played Rummikub and provided the men with refreshments.

 Once the weekend was over, we headed back to Havasu.