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