Crazy May 2022 (06-10-22)

 We started the month of May in Fresno,  CA hanging out with Paul’s fraternity brothers. 

From Fresno we were headed to San Diego to meet up with Paul’s brother and his wife for the Zydeco festival, Gator by the Bay.  We had a couple of days to kill on the way there, so we stopped north of L.A. and invited our daughter Jess to join us at 6 flags for the day.

I am glad Paul is willing to go on all the crazy rides with her, because I can only handle  a few roller coaster rides in a day.

Down in San Diego, the Zydeco Festival was in full swing when we got there.  We stayed at the same RV resort as Paul’s brother and were able to do dinners together, and Uber to the festival. 

We met up with Sue’s son Shad, his wife Amy, and their son William.  William had never had crawdads, but once he tried them, he was immediately hooked.

The festival has 7 stages, all with live music happening all day long.  There are tons of food vendors, and every day at 2 pm there is a parade through the festival grounds.

From there we headed home for a couple of days- just long enough to enjoy one day on the lake. 

 Then we took off again to meet up with Paul’s brother and Sue again, this time in Laughlin NV , where their RV club was staying, and we all enjoyed a river boat cruise.

Las Vegas is the nearest Costco to us, and I needed new glasses, so we headed there by way of Boulder City, NV.  Boulder City is near the Hoover Dam, and we had never taken a tour, so we thought it was about time. Actually, Boulder City was built to house the thousands of workers who built the Boulder (now called Hoover) dam.

In 1905, much of the Imperial Valley was destroyed by the flooding of the Colorado River. Part of the solution to keep that from happening again, was the building of Hoover Dam. Between 1930 and 1934, the dam was created, and it’s creation in turn, created Lake Mead.

Glasses ordered, we headed home to get ready for Memorial Day weekend. Since we’ve had the house, every Memorial Day Weekend, my cousin Linda from Phoenix brings her friends to party in Havasu.  This was our first year back since Covid, but my cousin couldn’t make it.  No worries, her friends came anyway!

They are a wild bunch, and always fun. 

They party hard and yet two mornings the women convinced me to get up at 5:30 to go hiking.

 

I took them to one of my favorite hikes- SARA'S Crack-a nearby slot canyon. The guys were off mountain biking by 6 am as well.

Back from our outings, we  packed up for the day and took off

 on the boat....

...one day taking it up river to a restaurant...

 

and another day just lazing around on the lake.

If you had asked us that weekend when we would be leaving Havasu, we wouldn’t have had any idea- but the minute the group left for home, we started cleaning and packing.

At the last minute, we decided to drain the pool again, so it would have softer water for the summer. We had to do as much of it at night as we could because the high temperature can crack the plaster.

One more, momentous thing happened in May.  Paul sold his jet boat. 

It was no easy decision, let me tell you- he helped build the boat just after graduating college, and has a million happy memories of using it.

As soon as they heard the news, his fraternity brothers started sharing memories and pictures (yes, that's my husband leaning on the boat).

 

 

We haven’t used it in a very long time however, and it was time to sell it to someone who would.

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.

Desert Boondocking (04/04/22)

 Once January came around, Paul and I, and Liz and Randy had sort of made a pact that we would do some exploring, so we packed up the rigs.  Our main destination was Anza Borrego Desert State Park, in California.  Its only a few hours from the house, but surprisingly we have never been there.  We have tried, but something always got in the way. But this time, we made it!

Our first stop however, was the small town of Quartzsite. We have been here many times- its a haven for RVers in the winter, and much of the appeal is boondocking in the desert with friends.  It was a smallish group compared to years past, but we had an awesome time.  We met up with old friends Tom and Dianne, and re-connected with friends Tina and Jeff, who we haven’t seen much of the last few years.  And….we convinced our friends Al and Debbie to give boondocking a try for a few days.

We even resurrected our traditional quesadilla and margarita night- we used to do this in Q every year, and have served as many as 46 people.  Not this year though- it was a nice cozy small group.

After a few days, we peeled off and headed to Anza Borrego, the largest state park in California- 585,000 acres large. Although we stopped at the campground to dump the tanks and get information at the visitor center, our goal was to find a quiet spot to ourselves to boondock for a week.

Anza Borrego has tons of miles of off road Jeep trails, so we had brought our truck camper and towed the Jeep.  Liz and Randy had their bigger rig, of course.  We ended up parking in an old parking lot so we could explore without getting into a situation that was hard to get out of. After looking around, we could have moved to a little nicer spot, but we were content where we were, and pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Parking in the desert doesn’t mean we eat jerky and nuts for dinner- Liz and I put our heads together and planned some pretty tasty meals for our stay in the park.

We started our exploring with a hike to Borrego Palm Canyon. This trail is just over 3 miles round trip and leads to an awesome grove of California Fan Palms, fed by a running stream. Fan Palms are the only palm tree native to California, and it was incredible to find a grove of them in the desert.

The following day we hiked a short but extremely fun trail called simply “the Slot”.  It’s a relatively short slot canyon that packed a lot of scrambling and climbing in a short distance.  We had a blast.

Since we were done with that early in the day, we trekked up the windy mountain road to the small town of Julian. Pioneers discovered that this area is rich farm land, and especially perfect for growing apples.  They are now known for their world class apple pie.  Paul says its the best he has ever had (he still talks about it).  

There are also wineries, breweries and shops that line the old fashioned Main Street.  Because Julian sits at almost 5000 ft, it was a bit chilly, and windy, so we didn’t stay too long.

One of the major Jeep trails we took was to Calcite Mine. The narrow, dirt road with steep cliffs was not for the faint of heart (although it really wasn’t too bad as long as there were no vehicles coming the other way).  

At the end of this two mile road, we were able to get out and explore on foot. 

 

You can see in this picture the remoteness by how small the Jeep looks. The calcite mining in this area was done during World War II, and the calcite was used for making gun sights for the Navy.

On the way home, we stopped to explore anything that caught our fancy, including the Carrizo Badlands Overlook. The views here were incredible and reminded me a lot of Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

In between all the exploring, we, of course, had to check out the metal sculptures.  The late David Avery, a landowner in the area, envisioned the town with lots of freestanding, life size metal art and set out to make it happen. 

There are now over 130 sculptures, all around the town of Borrego Springs and the outlying areas. We saw a lot of them, and we each had our favorites.

Our final day was a busy one. We drove the Fish Creek Wash trail with the Jeep, stopping to explore along the way.  

The Wind Cave Trail is a short hiking trail to some “caves” created by the wind.  They were fun to climb around on and reminded me of the Flintstones.

Towards the end of Fish Creek Wash is Sandstone Canyon.  This was a very cool slot canyon that is navigable by Jeep.

We didn’t immediately run home after our stay in Anza Borrego.  We all made a short stop in Yuma to see some friends (of course, I didn’t take any pictures), and then Liz and Randy went back to the house and Paul and I continued on to El Paso to spend a few days with his mom.