Having a BLAST at Lake Havasu!

There are two things that really bring out the "little kid" in me, and that is Christmas lights and Fireworks!  I never get tired of seeing either one of them (just ask my family!)  So, when I read a flyer that Lake Havasu was having their annual "Winter Blast Pyro Party" I knew I had to go!  We belong to our resort's RV Club and they like to put rallies together for interesting places and things, so I thought I would give it a try and sign up to be a "Wagon Master" and see who all would be interested in joining me for a few days.  The Winter Blast was for a whole week, but I had commitments so could only go for 4 days.  I thought maybe I would get 5 or 6 rigs interested...it turned out I'm not the only one who loves fireworks!  15 other couples do too!  Actually, we would even have had more, but quite a few said their dogs didn't...so, had to pass it up.

What fun we all had!  We lucked out with great weather (clear, and in the mid 70's) with beautiful sun rises and sun sets every day.  We started out with a welcome pot luck and of course had a ton of wonderful food, and a nice wood fire to sit and chat around before we wandered off to see the fireworks.  

During the daytime many enjoyed going into town to see the London Bridge and or hike the various area.  We, along with others checked out the local History Museum.  It was fun seeing how Lake Havasu got it's start.  Quite a marketing plan...flying people in from snow-filled states in the middle of winter to show them "sunny & warm" Arizona! 

 Each night we were treated to a different live band, then followed by hours of fun-filled fireworks.  You could see them from anywhere, but the best seats were in the bleachers (we camped at the rodeo grounds).  

Our final night dwindled down to half the group as many had to leave early due to various commitments, but that didn't stop the rest of us from enjoying one last dinner together and a nice campfire that we all decided to stay around and watch the last fireworks from there...all comfy together.  

 

A simple rally, only 3 hours away, but packed with loads of fun and friendship!  What a BLAST!

...sitting back in Arizona,  Marie

December Days...

After leaving my family in Washington, we headed south to get out of the cold and the rain as fast as we could!  I love my family and I love spending time with them, but I confess, I'm not a big fan of the cold & rain!  So, being in Washington in the winter is not a big draw for me, and if my family wasn't there...neither would I!  ;-)

 Each year when we leave Washington after Thanksgiving we cross our fingers that the weather doesn't mess us up.  It's always a gamble as to which route to take, and each year we study the weather, read the reports and in the end, it's almost like flipping a coin as to if we are going to face snow & ice on I-5 or flooding & mud slides on 101.  We've had both experiences and had to back-track and move from one to the other because of them!  Fun.  This year, however, we got nothing but sunshine all the way!  Yea!  As we traveled south, the temperatures got warmer and warmer, so nice...

We decided to spend December pretty much along the Colorado River, just sitting back and "doing nothing".  We belong to Colorado River Adventures and almost never use the membership because we are rarely in the area, so decided that the wise and frugal thing to do this year was to spend the last few weeks of the year using it!  

So we parked ourselves just outside of Lake Havasu for the first week, them moved over to Emerald Cove in Earp until the end of December.  The only down-side to all of this was that the WiFi is really hard to get (here it is the last day of December and I just now was able to finally get on!!) and no TV reception at all.  So, it's a good thing we like to read and that we have a great set of movies to watch on our own!  ;-)

Christmas was quiet this year.  At our age, it's pretty much sending presents to grandchildren and getting calls from our children.  I did get a very unexpected present from a dear friend that was such a delight.  She ordered me a lap blanket from Ireland that is from "my Gorman clan".  It came with a tag that explained my family heritage, etc.  Very, very cool. 

We did get invited to join our friends for Christmas in Surprise, so we gave ourselves a Christmas present of a two night stay at a hotel near them and drove over Christmas Eve.  They treated us to a wonderful dinner that night, a Christmas brunch and a Christmas dinner as well.  We felt very spoiled.  The sun came out and the six of us had a lovely time visiting and catching up on all that's been going on in the few months that we've been away.

We will be back at the first of the year to stay again for three months.  This time I'm not going to break anything, so am planning on joining in on several of the activities they have at the resort.  Jack too, has several projects he has in mind to do.

It's been an interesting stay here.  Quiet, yet noisy.  It's quiet in that people really don't mingle much, not like at other campgrounds.  They smile, but they don't stop and chat, not even your next door neighbors, and they are very close.  Odd.  Noisy, because many of the boats are speed boats that just love to rev up their engines and zoom up and down the river.  Wow, they are loud! 

There is one more novelty here too...what I call "the three amigos"...it's the wild burros that come to visit.  They seem to just wander in at will, and hang around and then leave again.  We've run into them as we've taken walks around the campground and they are either bunched together in the shade by one of the cottages or wandering around some of the RVs drinking water out of a bucket that was left out.  Kind of cute.  I only had my camera with me once, of course...

All in all, it was a restful stay and a nice way to end our year...

...kicking back in Arizona,  Marie

Lake Havasu with friends...

Showing friends around a town you've visited before (albeit two years ago) is different, and fun!  Something we've not done in a long time - certainly not since we've been RV'ing, that's for sure!  Lake Havasu was one of our first stops when we started out two years ago, "newbies" to RV'ing.  Nice campground and nice area to get "acquainted" to RV'ing.  Two years ago the weather was mostly colder with a day or two of sunshine that included their beautiful balloon festival.  This year it was almost all sunshine, but we missed the balloon festival - a trade off I guess.

Having friends join us was a real treat!  It was fun to know our way around and to have a couple of "favorite spots" - Mudshark Brewery for hamburgers and Donut Post for some of the best donuts anywhere!  We never got lost either and that's always a plus! ;-)

Of course we took them to the London Bridge, but this time we all got a "new treat" and added a boat cruise to our day!  Because the weather had been so cold before, it was something Jack and I hadn't done so it was nice to do this time.  We did the two hour "lighthouse tour" and it was a delight.  Capt. Rick was our guide and he was a wealth of information.  He has been doing tours on Lake Havasu for over a decade and seems to know every nook and cranny of it.  He certainly knew a lot of the history of the town and Robert McCulloch and his development of it in 1964.  There are about 23 lighthouses (1/3 scale) along the 45mile long lake that are replicas of both east & west coast famous lighthouses.  They are sponsored by individuals or by organizations.  Jack and I laughed and said that maybe when I "go", we will put one up of the Pt Loma Lighthouse in my honor! ;-)  Don't you think that would be appropriate?

Anyway...he also took us into some lovely coves along what's called "Copper Canyon".  Beautiful color and rock formations.  They have a sunset tour, that I wished we would have taken because I bet it would have really set those areas off beautifully!  Oh well, something for next time.  As it was, the day was a bit over-cast, so the pictures weren't as bright as I would have liked, but a fun trip all the same.

Another day we tootled on down "Main Street" and discovered it was the day they all bring out their classic cars!  After a meal at a "new favorite" the Red Onion, we enjoyed handmade ice cream at Scoops and cruised up and down the street admiring the handy work of the car owners.  Nice evening.

We managed to fit in a movie and of course some shopping!  Some lazy days in the sun and plenty of laughter.  On our last day we went over to the casino where they have the Da Vinci Exhibit.  What a nice treat!  Some lovely paintings and samples of his inventions.  A great breakdown of the history of his life from birth to death all on one wall.

The weather is changing here, cold and windy.  Our friends have traveled on and we are back on our own again.  We have a week of "no plans" before we are booked into Sedona at our timeshare.  We were going to try seeing some new country, a place someone had suggested, called Cottonwood in northern Arizona, but the weather is predicted to be in the 50's during the day...to cold for us (wimps), so we've decided to turn this rig around and go south to Phoenix where it's a bit hotter, at least for a few days!  See, that's what you can do when you are "free & easy" like us!

London Bridge, Lake Havasu AZ

Entrance to the London Bridge Village, Lake Havasu AZ

Capt. Rick aboard the Kon Tiki, Lake Havasu AZ

East Quoddy (New Brunswick Canada) Lighthouse

Copper Canyon, Lake Havasu AZ

 Da Vinci's flying machines

Madonna of the Yarnwinder

 ...on the road in Arizona,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/   

The "adventures" aren't always the fun ones you expect!

The knock on our door came at about 10:30pm.  It was our friend apologizing, asking us if we could take her and Bob to the hospital.  He was experiencing nausea, shortness of breath and dizziness.  It could be just his inner ear - but it could be a stroke - she didn't want to take the chance.  Judy's an RN and I trust her judgement!  I told her to give me a minute to put on some street clothes and Jack to find out where the nearest hospital was and we would be right there.

We had all just arrived at Lake Havasu that afternoon from a week in dusty, dry Quartzsite.  We had spent the afternoon enjoying the day washing off the dirt, walking around the lake and kicking back just relaxing.

The staff in the ER were super.  They took Bob right in and immediately attended to him.  Throughout the night (and early morning) they would ask me if I would like a blanket, as I "looked cold".  Somewhere around 2am they gave up on me saying "no thank you" and brought me two heated ones anyway, ohhh, they were nice...

Finely around 3am, Judy said they had run most of the tests, but wanted to keep hm overnight and do an MRI so were going to move him into a room and we could leave soon.  He was doing much better now tho.

As we drove back to the campground we spotted the moon hanging so low and so pretty, we all thought it was a picture on a billboard at first!  Guess we aren't used to seeing it at 4am!  ;-)

After a few hours of sleep and fresh showers, we were back at the hospital to see what was up.  The cell service here in the campground is awful, as we are in a canyon and all you get (if you get) is "I can't hear you" from the other end.  We found Bob sitting up and having lunch, feeling just fine!  ;-)  He had taken all his tests, but no one had been in to tell him any results.  We called for the nurses to find out what was going on and soon learned that this staff was very different from the ER staff!

Hours went by waiting on the staff Dr. to show up to tell us the results...but the good news was that it wasn't a stroke!  It was his inner ear exacerbated by not moving for a long time (computer games).  All is well now. 

It was 5 o'clock by the time we left - in time for all of us to go out and celebrate at our favorite hamburger place in town, Mudsharks Brewery!  Phew!  Not the way we intended to start our week here, but a great way to begin again!

Looking forward to showing our friends around the lake and enjoying some sunshine together!

...kicking back in Arizona,  Marie

Nothing like a good burger!

One of the fun things we like to do is find the local pub, cafe, ice cream parlor, etc. to find the "best eats" - not just the places the tourists are sent to. Most of the time we ask around, sometimes we just spot someplace that looks interesting. That's what happened this night. We felt like "a really good burger" and wandered around town until we spotted this pub with a lot of cars outside (always a good sign). The name immediately intrigued me, Mudshark Brewery & Restaurant.

Now, I have to admit, I am a sucker for blue cheese burgers, so when one is on the menu, I stop right there, no need to go any further. Jack's pretty easy to please, as he pretty much goes for the "basic American-style" burger, but is real picky about his fries. They have to be very well done. Burgers delivered, looking good, even Jack's fries done just the way he likes them. I'm a Jenny Craig student, so when I get my meal, the first thing I do is cut it in half and set one aside to take home for later. That done, I take my first bite. OMG! I don't hardly know how to describe it, except to say, do you remember a time when there was a real popular chocolate dessert called "better than sex cake"? Well, this burger just kicked that cake aside! It was the best bite of anything I had ever taken. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! "To be fair" I told myself, I took a bite of the burger without any blue cheese, one with just the beef hanging out of the bun. It was the most juicy & flavorful bite of burger I have had since, hmmm, well, since, hmmm, let me get back to you on that one...

The second half never made it home.

...kicking back in Arizona, Marie

Balloons!

Wow, did we luck out! Little did we know it, but we arrived in Lake Havasu, just in time for their annual (2nd!) Balloon Festival! Four days of hot air balloons, arts & crafts, merchandise and food booths, live entertainment and lots of fun! We chose to go on Friday, thinking that it would be less crowded than the weekend with the kids still in school. Good choice, as it turned out to the best day of the four, both weather wise and event wise! And what a GREAT DAY it was too! We could not have asked for a prettier day! We got plenty of exorcise walking from the (very far) free parking lot to the fairgrounds, then all around the many acres of grounds to work off the calories of all the fun fair food that we consumed throughout the day, that's for sure! Several balloons were offering tethered rides all day, but the "big attraction" was going to be at 4 o'clock when all the balloons (40 expected) would be showing up to do their "night glow"! That, we had to stay for! In the meantime we had fun prowling around the different booths, checking out what folks make in the lively city of Lake Havasu...jewelry mostly! Lots & lots of it, it seems! I did find one small unusual treasure to take home with me, a "fabric painting" is the best description I can give it. Instead of using paint to create a picture, the artist sewed pieces of fabric together to create the landscape. Very pretty, and different. I bought a very small one, since space is a premium in our little home. I also managed to find a hat that actually fit me! That's a hard thing for me, as it seems I have a small head (I know that hard for some to believe) and I think I look funny in most hats; but this one is kind of a fun, funky one...like me! I even got a compliment on it later! ;-)

Around 3 o'clock, we decided we better find ourselves "the perfect spot" to watch the balloon launch so scouted around and finally decided on one by a small pond. Once settled, a nice old gentleman joined us. He stayed throughout the evening, sharing his story about how he came to the city and about his family. We enjoyed chatting with 87 year old Charlie from Canada. He made the wait more interesting. Soon the drivers and their balloons began arriving and setting up and the real fun began. This is the first time I've been to one where they not only allowed you to walk around close to all of them, but encouraged you to mix and mingle with the crew, get as close as you wanted, and practically join in on the fun of setting it all up! It really added to the excitement! I snapped away. I couldn't take pictures fast enough! Soon the sun was setting and the sky was competing with the colors of the balloons! They added some skydivers, and some biplanes to the festivities just to liven things up even more! Just as the sky was getting the darkest, and the night glow of the balloons were really making their show, I was running out of battery! Yikes! I was still able to get a few final shots in, anyway. I took over a hundred pictures, so it was probably a good thing it gave out, or who knows how long I would have kept going! The good side, was that it forced me to put my camera down and just wander around and enjoy it all, and enjoy it we both really did. Good job Lake Havasu, you can be proud of yourself on this one!

































































































If you would like to see the rest of the photos, you can view them on my Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/sets/72157629088643837/

...kicking back in Arizona, Marie

Lovely Lake Havasu City!

Traveling is fun...most of the time...but we all know, nothing is perfect. Case in point - Our trip to Lake Havasu...

We have this wonderful GPS system, the Rand McNally Tripmaker but it's only as good as the information going into it. Sooo, when we were given the "address" of the campground, that's what I put into the system. Well, I should say, that's what I tried to put into the system. It kept fighting me (that was my first clue), not "finding" it in Lake Havasu or Parker. As the sun started setting and we started getting closer to Quartzsite we started getting more and more worried that we were indeed lost. With hundreds of rigs heading on the long stretch to Quartzsite, and not a turn-out in sight, it didn't look pretty. Quartzsite was the last place Jack wanted to be, and I was failing fast as the navigator. Tempers were starting to flare! This was not going well. We finally spotted an area large enough to pull over and recalculate the situation. That done, Jack saw a way to pull the rig around and go back the way we came and retrace our route. Long story short, we finally found the place, well hidden, I might add! Once there (Havasu Springs Resort), the staff couldn't have been more accommodating and friendly. Luckily they had a restaurant and it was still open too! Good food, a glass a wine and some live music later, and all was well. Phew! Lesson learned...don't fight the GPS system, she knows best, if she can't find it, the address or directions given were wrong!!

In the light of day, we saw that the campground (called a "resort") was really quite nice! Jack had won this when he was having some work done on the rig in San Marcos before we left, at Camperworld. They had called him on his birthday, no less, and told him he had won $1000 worth of free nights at a Colorado River Adventures campground of our choice. He explained that we were right in the middle of moving, etc. and we would have to call them back to schedule something. When we were in Pahrump, I told him to give them a call and see if we could go ahead and book their Lake Havasu location - that's how we ended up there! We had to attend a "sales meeting", we knew, but what the heck?

It ended up to be a good call. We met with some very nice folks, explained our new style of living for the next year or so, and actually worked out a really good deal for us (and them, of course). We decided to go ahead and purchase their membership. It's through CRA (Colorado River Adventures) and covers RPI (Resort Parks International) that includes Thousand Trails and Enjoy America campgrounds as well. That along with our KOA membership should pretty much cover us across the US! I was actually a little concerned about "peak season" camping, but now I don't have to be, yea for us! And that's now at $10-$15 a night even! I'll keep you posted on how it all works out.










































...kicking back in Arizona, Marie

Time to say goodbye...

Time to say goodbye to Nevada and to our friends, for now... Both have shown us a great time, and left us with wonderful memories that we will cherish for a very long time!

One of the things you realize when you are "on the road", knowing that you are not going to be seeing your friends for awhile, is how very precious each one is. I think we take our friends for granted most of the time; believing that they are "always there" so we can put off that call, or visit until a "more convenient time"...but is there really one? Sometimes not...and then the time is lost, and perhaps the friendship. A lesson, I fear, I've learned the hard way, as I found when we reached Phoenix (more about that later).

Although our time together was short, it sure was fun! Aside from the "tourist-type" stuff, hours were spent just talking, drinking wine, sharing stories, laughing, cooking together and enjoying the company of old and new friends. Working full time with the addition of the long commute, had changed our lives so much that I had gotten out of the habit of really cooking anything that took longer than a few minutes, and when we got together with friends, we almost always went out. Being with 6 others, who all chimed in that they "didn't cook, but would help" made making dinner again, fun! Meals I hadn't made in a long time; simple, everyday fare, made special because of the people, the laughter and the joy of sharing. I'd forgotten how much I'd missed that.
Even tho it's just the two of us again, back in the tiny rv kitchen, the freedom of "having all the time in the world" to cook (or not) is like a new found joy.

















As we left Pahrump, and headed in to Lake Havasu, and as usual, the Arizona sunset greeted us...















...on the road in Arizona, Marie