We stopped in Parker at the Walmart and did a little shopping. Next stop was at the Blue Water Casino for lunch. They have great pizza by the slice at the snack bar. We each had a piece of combination pizza and a tea.
We continued on toward Lake Havasu. We passed our intended destination, the BLM camping area at Standard Wash, just South of town. We explored around Sara Park, where the fireworks show will be. The show is the Western Winter Blast XXI, a Western Pyrotechnics Association Show. Possibly actually a pyromaniacs show.
We returned to Standard Wash, having found nothing better. We could have camped right in Sara Park at what they called the Fairgrounds for $100 for the weekend. Not sure about the cost for the two days until the weekend. We decided against that option both because of the cost and because of the "party" that was going to happen there as well.
We returned to Standard Wash and pulled in the back on top of a hill with a great view overlooking Sara Park, Lake Havasu and the mountains. Our site is a bit rough and difficult to get to but it is on a ridge that should give a better view. However, we think we found out why most of the RV's are down in a gully, in addition to the fact it's more level. They probably have been here before. The wind up here on the ridge is pretty fierce.
Sunset views in all directions.
We enjoyed the nice sunset on the hill. More of our neighbors.
Above is a view of our perch above the town. Our view of the fireworks from here is pretty good.
The view from our campsite.
Thursday: (02/11) We had cerrios and bananas for breakfast.
When we drove out I managed to knock a plastic screen off tthe bottom of the engine getting up onto the highway. I pulled off as soon as i could a couple of miles down at Sara park and remove it. it may be able to be reattached later. Lou had forgotten her purse so we had to drive back in and get. Another opportunity to knock something else off the car. Our car and the RV both are very low to the ground, about half of other cars and motorhomes so we have to watch the bumps. Some times we underestimate obstacles. At least no permanent damage this time.
We caught the Dreamcatcher ferry across Lake Havasau to the Lake Havasu Landing Casino on the California side of the lake. Kind of a long drive to get to it but the ferry costs $3 and takes 20 minutes. We enjoyed lunch at the cafe, one of their daily specials, a steak burrito with rice and beans with a dinner salad. The burrito was rather spicy as was the rice, but very tasty.
We took a walk around the RV campground and the mobile homes then returned for the ferry. We didn't know you needed to pickup a boarding pass for the return so had to wait another hour for the next ferry.
When we got back we did a little shopping then stopped for dinner at the Golden Corral Buffet then headed home. It was getting dark and we wanted to find our way back in to our campsite without hitting too many rocks.
As we were nearing Sara park we saw a flying saucer, or what looked like one. The evidently set off a fireworks rocket the created a huge black smoke ring that looke like a saucer from our view point.
When we got home we went inside and watched the show, what the call open firing that had started at 5 pm and lasts until 1030. That's a long time to stare at fire works but there will be three more nights of the same with a real show on Saturday night from 8-10.
About 9:30, we went to bed and still had a nice view of the show through the windshield until they stopped about 10 pm.
We will have to take an afternoon nap to be ready for tomorrow night's show.
Friday: (02/12) Pancakes and sausage for breakfast. We took a walk around the hills and came upon a friendly group RV'ers way back from the road.In fact, we had to stop several times to share stories with other perfect strangeers. Our walk took a couple of hours.
The group we met way back in were all the way from Berenda, Arizona (near Quartzsite) about 60 miles from home. All our neighbors here on our ridge are all the way from Lake Havasu City, all of 10 miles from their homes. They camp here to see the fire works better. We also ran in to a buch from the California central valley areas. And, of course, many from the colder climents like Canada are here.
Saturday: (02/13) The night of the big boom! I had left over pancakes and sausage while lou had oatmeal for breakfast.
We went on an outing to town. First, a stop at the bank, then a stop at one of the thrift stores we visited yesterday to get a couple of decorated plaster carnival masks for Dawn. the we stopped at several ATV and UTV dealers. Watching our neighbors has inspired us to start looking for an ATV vehicle for the two of us. Of course then there is the problem of transporting it. We now have an idea of what fits and what doesn't fit us and the costs of the different models. You have to start sometime.
We also stopped by several open houses to see what a house here would cost and be like. Nice houses for a song here, relatively speaking.
Our final stop was the new shopping mall, or attempt at it. It evidently opened last April and is very empty still. We stopped by Walmarts for a few things including some jalapeno olive loaf which we snacked on for a lunch snack. and then returned home having wasted another day. We got back in time for an early dinner or late lunch and a nap before the big public fireworks show tonight at 8pm.
They started firing noise makers just after 5 pm when it's still light and continued into the evening. More colorful fireworks and less boomers as it got darker. At 8pm what they call the public display started and all the random firings stopped and it looked more coherent with lots of concentrated firings and then short periods of none. We thought the public display was going to last a couple of hours but it barely was one hour long, very nice and impresive but shorter than expected. We saw many fireworks that we haven't seen before, some huge. Our observation point/campsite is about 1.8 miles per my very scientific calculation based on counting the seconds between the observation of the explosion and the arrival of the boom. From that study I also calculated that the majority explode about 2500 feet with some twice that height. Of course, the acccuracy is only guaranteed to within 100% error. They sent up a couple that exploded at 2500 feet and expanded out on explosion up another 2500 feet and down to the ground before fading away. They were quite impressive.
They stopped for a long time at 9pm and all the people who drove to the show left and then they started open firing again until nearly 1030pm. A very nice show. We're staying another night to watch the open firing on Sunday night as well.
Sunday: (02/14) Happy valentines Day to everyone!
Our breakfast was French toast to use up our old bread, served with bacon. Aafter breakfast we enjoyed the sun outside watching some of our neighbors depart.
We did not leave our camp today. We did take a long walk through the washes and over the hills. Lou fixed stir fry noodles and vegetables with tofu for dinner.
The final night of Winter blast fireworks was as good as ll the other evening. We saw some that we've never seen before. The one that showed a red tracer as it went up vertically about 2500 feet then made a right turn and went 2500 feet horizontally, was quite neat. It must be confusing to be a stranger traveling along highway 95 and seeing some of these fire works. May be the source of the area 51 type reports? Do they test these in Nevada?
Monday: (02/15) Breakfast was different. We had cottage cheese with diced jalapena loaf. Quite good. we enjoyed our teat outside watching most of our neighbors depart. There is a wash just below us that several pickup travel trailer campers used to exit their
campsite way back from the road. Each one had to drag the trailer off its wheels through the wash. Doesn't seem practicle to me. When they went in they were able to take a higher road that was now blocked by an incourtous camper parked in theat part of the road.
When we came in I dragged our sewer pipe at the top of a ridge just down from our campsite. This time, for our exit, I calculated exactly how to make our coach seem a couple of inches higher by crossing the top at an angle. It worked with an inch to spare. It also sounded much better than the scraping on the way in.We also both made it out onto the highway without further bottom scrapping.
Our first stop was the laundromat but it was too busy so we just parked the coach and took the car on a tour of town. We stopped at a real estate office and got their listings and covered the whole town finding a couple of very nice fixer uppers for less than $75000. ???
We had lunch at the Black Bear diner sharing a chicken fried steak breakfastand pancakes.
When we returned to the laundromat there was plenty of room to get our wash done. Lou took care of some errands while I waited with the wash. A little grocery shopping, more filtered water and a visit to another real hardware store looking for some tiny bolts for her sewing machine.
After the laundry was done we looked at another five homes. The last one we looked at was extremely tempting. Good condition, good sized level lot, an RV hookup and an excellent neighborhood right next to open desert on the high side of Southern Lake Havasu. Very tempting but since we have to have a reason not to get it the fact it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath will have to suffice. It was fun looking.
It was getting late as we left just before sunset. We drove back down to the Blue Water Casino intending to have a slice of pizza and spend the night but they were out of our favorite combination pizza so we had the buffet. It was a nice dinner and Lou got her delayed Valentines Day prime rib. We had opted to avoid any crowd that might have occurred yesterday evening for dinner and ate at home.
I finally posted a few pictures on this post and the previous.
We'll head on down to Quartzsite tomorrow morning when it's light.
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