Casa Grande, AZ November 22 - December 2, 2015

Back on the road, heading southeast about 300 miles from Lake Havasu to Casa Grande, AZ.  It is about 45 miles south of Phoenix.  It is a great little town with lots of nice shopping and very clean.  We stayed at the Sundance RV Resort which is a very nice resort with lots of activities.  Also, for those traveling you can stay there 1/2 price on Passport America for up to 2 weeks. There are a lot of snowbirds that stay in this resort.  They have everything from ping pong night, to dances, to quilting sessions, wood working shop, dance lessons and lots more.  We ended up meeting 2 couples down there that we have met along the road and had a great time with them and enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner together.  

Lynn and Doug hosted Thanksgiving in their motorhome!  7 people around a table.  Not bad for a motorhome!

This was our Turkey (we cheated and had Safeway cook it, we just reheated it)  Great way to go!

This was the evening sky on Thanksgiving Day.  Beautiful!

We met lots of nice people in Casa Grande.  Doug and Lynn knew a lot of people and introduced us.  We got connected with a group of motorcycle riders and went on a day ride to Aho, AZ.  Very fun.  Interesting to see so many boarder patrol vehicles along these roads.  There was a group of 17 bikes on this ride!  That was a big group.  We stopped in Aho for lunch an a local Mexican restaurant.   We would love to go back and ride with these people again.

             

Another thing we did while in Casa Grande was go to the Olive Mill which was up close to Phoenix area.  We went by several cotton fields, very interesting, I didn't realize that Arizona grew cotton, but it was fun to see it in the fields, and getting picked.  The Olive Mill was interesting too, we got a tour and got to taste a lot of the different olive oils.  They taste different depending on when they are picked and processed.

Cotton picker!

Cotton in full bloom.

cotton field ready for harvest.

And, probably John's favorite thing we did in the Casa Grande area was going to the skydiving school in Eloy.  This is a training facility for skydiving, and it is very busy with people jumping all day long.  We saw lots and lots of people jumping out of airplanes and landing right in front of us.  We saw groups practicing formation jumps and people jumping tandem for the first time.  John got to jump tandem which he really enjoyed.  The last time he did that was for his 30th birthday and I think he could have done it all day long!  

Ride out to the airplane

Smooth landing!

Here they come.

He loved it!  Can't wait to do it again.

On Sunday, we went to Quail Run RV park in Arizona City, AZ (only about 20 minutes from where we were staying in Casa Grande) and watched the Seahawks game with a bunch of people from the motorcycle ride.  This is Skip and Bev's home which is a park model with a really nice outdoor space.  Really cute little place, Bev does great decorating  Don't you love he wine barrel table they had made!

Here are some pictures of the inside of this cute place.  She does a great job of decorating.

  

We leave Casa Grande on December 2nd and head to Hemet.  We will park the motorhome there while we go home to Olympia for the month of December.  Hemet is about 315 miles from Casa Grande.  Looking forward to the next adventure!

Lake Havasu City, AZ -- November 14 - 21, 2015

On next stop was at Lake Havasu City, AZ.  We stayed at the Crazy Horse Campground which is on the island just over the London Bridge from the main street into town.  This is a great park because you can park right on the waterfront and wake up to a view of the lake and all the activities that happen there. This is the view from our motorhome.  Pretty fun!  When we got there, they were having a model airplane race right in front of us over the lake.

 

This is the famous London Bridge that Mr. McCullough (yes, the chainsaw guy) bought and had shipped over and then rebuilt to connect this small island to the mainland.  Actually they dug out a channel to create this island.

While in Lake Havasu, we were told we needed to see the Bar in the Desert it is way off the beaten path and unexpected.  So we did, we had a hard time finding the road because there are no signs, but we found it and you drive through the desert on dirt roads for 5 miles before you come to this place.  It was a fun and unique experience.  Here are some pictures.

    

Lake Havasu also has lots of bike paths around the island and the canal and some really nice parks.  We had fun riding our bicycles around on this sunny day in November!  So weird to see Christmas decorations up and the sun is shining and people are in shorts!  Love it!

    

  

   


After Lake Havasu we decided to follow our friends Doug and Lynn down to Casa Grande, AZ and share Thanksgiving Dinner with them.  Back on the road!










       

Bullhead City, AZ

Made it to Bullhead City on Saturday, October 24th.  The weather is in the high 80's and low 90's just the kind of weather we like.  We are staying at the Ridgeview RV Park, just across the river from Laughlin NV where there are a bunch of casinos.  

We met up with our friends Doug and Lynn Pederson from Moses Lake who are also staying at the Ridgeview RV Park, and took several day trips.  First we went to the local Museum where John and Doug got put in Jail, John came out of the saloon, and we found out a lot about the Laughlin, how it was formed, and learned how Old man Laughlin (who is still alive) started the casino town and has grown it to what it is today.  He actually paid for the bridge between Laughlin and Bullhead City and the airport that is on the Bullhead side, and then gave them to the Nevada and Arizona.  It was good for his business.  The money in the picture below was in the museum, it is Confederate Money and I thought the kids would enjoy seeing it.

 

We also went to Oatman with Doug and Lynn.  This is the town where the burros' have the run of the street.  The story is they used the burros in their mining business and when they quit mining, they just let the burros go and they stuck around town.  They go up into the hills at night but during the day they walk right down the street.  We had fun walking around this dusty old town.  It feels like it got left back in the 1940's or so.

 

The stores had some pretty old antique stuff in them as well you can imagine! And at high noon they had a shoot out in the middle of town.  And there was an old mine we visited.

 

While at Bullhead City, we took a drive out to Christmas Tree Pass where we saw lots of Indian petroglyths.   It was fun to see so many Indian writings on the rocks makes you wonder how they got up to the rocks to write on them!  The Petroglyphs are all along the rocks on both sides of this canyon to the left and to the right.

  

We are off to Lake Havasu City next for a week then on to Casa Grande, AZ.  We are enjoying the sunshine and spending time with our friends Doug and Lynn Pederson.