March 15 – 16, 2012 Casa Grande and Wickenburg

Just to get you caught up…

We spent Thursday shopping – as Andy would say “getting stuff to fill our shed” -      as well as chatting and saying our goodbyes (until next season) to our neighbors and friends.

Today we left our lot and headed northwest: 

 

Check out the size of this concrete wall west of Phoenix – not sure what it will be but it was HUGE!:

Ahhh…Spring is here – lots of flowers on our way:

 

We arrived at North Ranch SKP Park near Wickenburg and were nicely surprised to see our friends, Carolyn, Elena and Ron, and Steve, all camped here in the park.   Please kept our friend, Pete, Carolyn’s husband, in your prayers.  He is in the hospital here in Wickenburg and hopefully will be out next week.

After we set up, I stopped in at beading to say hello to all the ladies – great to see old friends and some new faces too.  Our friend, Dawn, was there and we had a nice long chat, getting caught up with each other.   So I will be seeing all of them over the next two weeks.

And since we were visiting so much, we decided to go out to supper with Steve – nice time – :-)).

We will be here for two weeks.  Bead Week starts on 3/25 and I will be teaching a class that week as well as taking some classes (and probably more visiting – :-)).   So I may not be updating for a while.

Take care and enjoy today.

 

 

Stats:

Miles Traveled: 154 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Arizona: Montgomery Road, I-8; SR-85; I-10; SR-303; US-60; US-89   (I know – we took the long way around rather than going thru Phoenix!)

March 14, 2012 OUR LOT IN CASA GRANDE

Today, we are the proud owners of……

 

Lot size is 35’ x 55’ with two sheds, nice finished patio, and gravel.

We are so excited!!!

Now does that mean we are coming off the road?  Nope, but it gives us a place to store “stuff” as well as a place to settle in when we need it.   Plus I love spending the holidays here – :-)).

We expect to be here until Friday, then head to Wickenburg until the end of the month.  We will return here after that to do a few things (including “summerizing” the lot/sheds) before we start our wandering again.

Stay tuned and enjoy today.

March 5 – 13, 2012 Casa Grande

On Monday, 5th, we left the Colorado River and traveled 217 miles (Parker Dam Road, US 95, SR 72, I-10, US 85, I-8, Montgomery Road) to the SKP Park in Casa Grande and found out that we are number one on the list for a lot – Yippee!

Coming back to this park feels almost like coming home.  We know the park, the area, and many of the people.  What a nice feeling.

So what have we been doing over the past week?  Well, reconnecting with friends – Pam and Steve, Donna and Bob, Katy and Gary.  Lynne and Fred came here for a few days on their way to Quartzsite so it was good to spend time with them.  They will be heading back to Alberta by the end of this month.   We also had a nice time with Ken and Jan at the Moose on Friday – it was great getting caught up again.  Yesterday, we were with them again at the Escapee Luncheon at Golden Corral and met more SKPs in the area.  And of course all the great people in the park – like I said before – it is like coming home with all our great neighbors.

On Wednesday, we made the trip to the Tucson VA for more testing for Andy – all is good and we are still very impressed with that VA.

On Saturday night, Danny Yeary and his sidekick put on a great show here.  They play at Branson but their theater was destroyed in the recent tornados that were thru that area.  So now they are on the road and it was great that they played here.  GREAT SHOW.

Other than that, we have been puttering around the motorhome, etc. etc. and taking it easy – :-))

On Monday, the 12th, we moved from site 110 to site 62.  Our next blog will tell you more and hopefully have some pictures.

Until then, enjoy today.

 

March 1- 4, 2012 – Just Hanging Out by the Colorado River

And that is what we did the past few days – just hung out.   We have been enjoying the weather and in between we have filled our days with shopping, checking out the local swap meet, reading, walks, visits to the clubhouse for dinner and happy hour, organizing my bead stuff and even finishing two bracelets.  I even got to back up all my pictures – yea!

We did have a nice surprise today – Sandy and Raul came up from Yuma to visit.  We have not seen them since right after Thanksgiving so it was great to get caught up.  Hope to spend time again with them next season.

So tomorrow we are headed to Casa Grande for a week and then to Wickenburg so stay tuned.

Until next time.

Thanks to Judie for the picture.  :D

February 28 – 29, 2012 Busy Two Days Playing Tourist

February 28, 2012 – Road Trip Day – :-)

The Parker Dam Road from Earp to Parker Dam is part of the Parker Strip Scenic Byway managed by the Bureau of Land Management.  Although there are many private campgrounds and business where the land is leased from the BLM, there is also many public areas managed by the BLM.  So today we wanted to check out some of those areas.

There are two campgrounds on the strip that honor the Golden Age Pass – one has no services but it is in the trees and right by the river.  The other has some services as well as showers, etc. and camping is in the open and on pavement.   There are also a number of day use areas for picnicking or boat launch – some free and some have a fee.

Our CRA membership allows us to camp for free for two weeks and then we must leave the park for a week (or pay a fee for a week) and then we could return for free for another two weeks.  That is one of the reasons we checked out those campgrounds.  The one that has no services would be only $2.50 per day to camp and we could come back to the CRA park for anything else we would need.  (Sounds like a good deal to me.)

So with that out of the way, we took advantage of some of this incredible scenery along the way.

 

 

At we turned into one of the day use areas, here is what we saw:

 

How delightful!  (Those who know me can just imagine how excited I was to see these wild creatures – :-)).  These burros are descendents of the burros that were lost and/or abandoned by the miners.  The herds are now managed by the BLM.  Aren’t they the cutest.

As we approached Parker Dam, we saw the turnoff for Black Meadow Landing so off we went to check it out.  The road is 10 miles thru the Chemehuevi Mountains and the scenery, oh my! 

 

At this point, the lines on the road disappeared and the road became much rougher – a new adventure – :-):

 

Another nice surprise:

 

We watched him for a long while until his went on his journey and we continued on ours:

Spring has come to the desert:

And we arrived at Black Meadows Landing which consisted of a motel, RV Park, store, restaurant, boat launching area, a golf course, and more incredible scenery:

Quail by the restaurant where we had a great lunch:

 

A nice place for a picnic:

In the center of this photo is a white speck.  When we were at the steps two weeks ago, we walked to the top of the hill and found that RV – he is still there.

By the golf course, we saw two burros and stopped.  I said hello to them and they came over to see us (of course the window went up real quick – LOL!)

Our return trip to the Parker Strip Byway – this is  Gene Wash Reservoir:

Check out these palms growing in this area:

Our final stop was the Parker Dam:

 

The Parker Dam is the deepest dam in the world.  It is 320 feet high, 235 feet of which are below the riverbed.  It’s primary functions are to create a reservoir on the Colorado (Lake Havasu) and to generate hydroelectric power.   Very Impressive!

We were able to stop on both the Arizona and California sides and take pictures but since 9/11, there is no tours. 

Lake Havasu:

 

The power plant has four turbines. Half of the electricity the plant produces is used by the Metropolitan Water District to pump water along the Colorado River Aqueduct, and the rest is sold to utilities in California, Arizona and Nevada. The generation of power is limited by a requirement to keep the water level of Lake Havasu between 440 to 450 feet (134 to 137 meters) for recreational purposes.

Downstream from the Dam:

Upstream from the dam:

Notice the clearness of the water:

What a great road trip and another great day in Paradise!

February 29, 2012 – Geocaching, Kayaking, and Lake Havasu

We started out this morning by finding two more geocaches – YEA!  We were told that there were Leap Day Events all over the world and a record was trying to be set for the most number of people geocaching in one day.  We did not make one of the events but we hopefully helped make that record.

Back home, we took the kayak out on the river and then explored more of those canals.  I brought my camera and took pictures BUT they were not there when I went to download.  The batteries ran out and they disappeared – Bummer…  (But then it was a cheap camera!).

Later this afternoon, we decided to go to Lake Havasu to check out the other CRA park that we hope to stay at next season (pretty nice!) and then had supper at the Elks there – still the best ribs I ever ate!.

Another great day!