Tag: arizona

Tucson, AZ to Lake Havasu City, AZ

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Althea all hooked up and baking in the Lake Havasu sun

We’ve been on the road for over two weeks, and I haven’t written a thing. It’s pretty odd behavior for someone who makes a living as a writer. What can I say? Working road trips can be exciting, but when you’re in front of the computer all day, it’s hard to sit down in the evening and write some more. Enough of my complaining; let’s get on with the fun.

We arrived at Havasu Falls RV Resort in Lake Havasu, AZ, in the afternoon, five hours after leaving Tucson. The day started out dramatically as Cheryl expertly extracted Althea (a 40-foot-long, 8-foot-wide beast) from her 42-foot-long, 9-foot-wide parking space. Who thought planting giant palm trees beside the RV pad was a good idea?

Since the RV park was all narrow roads and tight turns, we opted to forgo hooking up Jed, and I followed Cheryl out to I-10. Along the way, we passed Davis-Monthan Air Force Base with its Historic Aviation Bone Yard and the Pima Air and Space Museum. It was fascinating seeing all the parked planes. We’ll have to visit both places on a future stop in town.

After stopping for fuel at Love’s and reconnecting Jed, we got into serious work-driving mode, with both of us attending meetings at the same time. Luckily, there was little talking on our end. Along the way, the landscape remained deserty and inhospitable, with lots of nothing. We took the loop around Phoenix, which neither of us had done before, and marveled at how much traffic we avoided.

Eventually, we exited the interstate and dropped onto two-lane roads up through Vicksburg, Bouse, Parker, and finally into Lake Havasu City. Along the way, we passed many cows and the country’s second-largest egg producer. We were also passed by many people eager to get in front of us and arrive at their destination four minutes sooner. Sadly, we also passed a lot of roadside crosses making me think that I wouldn’t want to drive along those roads at night. Arriving in Havasu ahead of the long-weekend crowds meant very little traffic and a smooth setup at a nearly empty RV park.

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Havasu Falls RV Resort
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Althea across the pool
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Althea resting and cooling down

After resting, we met Janet and Bob for dinner at Barley Brothers Restaurant and Brewery. Janet made a great choice, as we had a window table looking straight at London Bridge and the boats motoring through the channel beneath. It was my first viewing of the bridge and elicited a somewhat jaded, “That’s it?” comment from me. I mean, it’s a stone bridge. It’s not like it’s the Tower Bridge or anything. We enjoyed great conversation, good food, and some tasty beers.

The next day, we worked the morning, then met Janet and her friend Angie at the London Bridge Resort, where we proceeded out to the docks and boarded Bob’s boat. He’d already been out fishing early in the morning with Angie’s son Trevor. The six of us set off on our tour of the lake, river, and gorge area just north of the lake. We had an awesome time, speeding across the water and leisurely floating.

It was smart being out on the water on Friday before all the weekend warriors launched. Even still, we had lots of party barges and go-fast boats to watch. There was even a bit of fishing when Bob and Trevor spotted a largemouth bass and tried catching it with bits of my turkey wrap and fresh cherries (no success).

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Realizing we needed to release the hounds from their crate incarceration back at Althea, we returned to the boat ramp and extracted the boat. After spending a few minutes back at Althea after walking the mutts, we headed off to Janet and Bob’s house up in the hills. Many twists and turns later, we arrived at their beautiful home and made ourselves comfortable in their amazing backyard around the pool shaped like a gingerbread person. In addition to the crew from the lake, we met next-door neighbors Lori and Brandon, as well as Mark and Cheyanne. After soaking in both cool and warm water, lots of pizza, and some wine, we made our way back to Althea, ready to sleep and wake up late (like 7:00 am or so).

-Clint

Born in the Desert, Raised in a Lion’s Den

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Saguaro National Park

Tonight is our last night in Tucson. We’ve had a great week working and hanging with friends. On Sunday, Janine and Bryan came to the RV park. They recently acquired an RV so we shared some experiences and advice with them. Our other friends Carol and Jess joined us as they also shared tips and tricks on RV life. We all went over to Carol and Jess’ and cooked burgers. They have a yard built for a party and the dogs all got to play together.

Work has been very busy and meetings start between 6:00 and 7:00 AM for us since it’s a 2-hour difference to Central Time. The good news is we finish early too. We just did chores and upkeep on Monday evening. Yesterday the dogs spent the whole day at Carol and Jess’ hanging with Oliver. We decided it was time to invade their pool after work. We grabbed some beverages and hopped in. The water was super chilly and refreshing. Of course Dani wanted to be where we were so she went swimming. The boy dogs wanted nothing to do with that. We did a salad night and made our own salad bar. Cool food helps keep us feeling cooler. 

Today we visited one of Tucson’s best attractions, Saguaro National Park. If you’ve never seen these beasts up close, this is the place to do it. Most of them think it’s spring and have flowers blooming on them. Many of the other cactus types have already passed peak flower time, but we got to see yellows, purples, reds, and oranges throughout the plants. There is one very rare and special crested cactus. His arms look like a fan shaped crest instead of being straight and tall. It’s a beautiful plant and amazing to see it up close. 

After the park we had lunch at a local cafe. It was nice enough, bordering on hot but we sat on the patio with the pups. Carol and Jess drove us back and we hopped on our afternoon meetings. 

We washed the dogs at the dog wash and are putting away what we can tonight so we get a reasonable start in the morning.

We are acclimating to the heat which is good since we have another 12 or so days in the desert. Hope you enjoy the Memorial Day weekend. We will be in Lake Havasu. Should be great fun.

Enjoy some images from Saguaro National Park:

-Cheryl

Tucson

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We rolled into Tucson early afternoon yesterday and it was a fairly easy drive. The RV park in Tucson is a 55 and older community and it looks like something right out of the Stepford wives. All the little lots and lawns and front yards are perfectly landscaped some of them with rocks and cactus and gravel others with signage and statuary.

We had to take the dogs for a walk and because it was pretty hot. We tried on the little boots that we brought for them. We’ve learned that with hot and also with places where there’s a lot of stickers these little hiking boots save their paws. When trying to get them used to the boots, the instructions say do not laugh. When they put them on, their little feet and legs are jumping up like they are on marionette strings. It’s all you can do to not laugh so we try not to let them hear us and I bribed them with treats.

It’s about 200 yards to the park so we figure let’s get it. Dani lost a boot at about 20 yards and Denzel lost a boot the next 20 yards and so on. We got to the little dog park, which is all gravel and they both laid down in the gravel underneath the bench. They were not having any of it. We marched them and their happy selves back towards the RV and at one point, Dani just laid down in the gravel and said I dare you to make me move. So, I picked her up and carried her for a little bit. We tried again and dogs and booties all made it back to the RV.

We loaded everybody up in Jed and went to our friends, Carol and Jess, for dinner. They have a standard poodle named Oliver and he’s a big sweetie. However, our little hellions take advantage of his good nature. Denzel bosses him around a little bit, but they get along pretty well together. All the dogs slept like logs after chasing each other through the yard and across the living room. Our mutts make themselves at home and, as with every other time we’ve been with Oliver, they pulled out every toy he owns. Oliver sometimes plays them, but Dani and Denzel think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. We enjoyed the evening and about 10 o’clock, we realized we felt like it was midnight our time. We came back and slept solidly.

Dani and Denzel at Place during dinner

Like all good folks here, we got up at 6:00 AM and took the dogs for a nice long walk in the cool weather. After our walk, we ran errands which included getting gas, going to the store, running through the car wash, and grabbing coffee. We worked on some outside things including scrubbing several hundred miles of bugs off the windshield, mirrors, and grill. It was really nasty. I cleaned up inside and Clint is installing a tall pole for our Starlink dish.

Starlink for RV is awesome. We’ve had it for about three years and the only challenges we’ve had are in really urban areas or in places where we can’t get a clear path to the sky. We noticed that a lot of people buy poles and attach them to their back ladders and telescope dishy above the rig. It seems to be working. We will have to put him up and take him down at every stop, but at least he now has a skyward home.

Dishy has a new home, high above the
ground obstructions.

Today, our friends, Janine and Bryan are stopping by. They recently bought an RV and are checking out ours. We will all join Carol and Jess for burgers and enjoy the rest of Sunday. More on Tucson later this week.

-Cheryl