Valentine's Day

 The steps   Hi 73 Low 48

Yesterday Cindy and I walked to the top of the mountain above the camp ground . This is the view from there.  

After that I went for a walk across the highway to look at some more of the steps and to look at some of the dead Palm trees. There are quite a few over  there. I also found two live ones in a gully. I walked 2 1/4 miles according to the GPS. I don't know the history of the steps, but will try to find out. Someone spent a lot of time leveling the land.

                                                       Today we went into town and found this quilt store. Cindy needed        some blue thread, and liked this pattern 

                            so well that she bought it and the material to make it.                               

After that we went back to London Bridge to take some more pictures of it and the gate going into it. The gate came from an English mansion, and was built in 1862. The above picture is a statue of Mr. McCulloch and the city engineer when they rebuilt the bridge and designed the town.          

        Another view of the bridge. and picture of the construction during assembly.  

Pretty Magnificent .

This is before they made the island. Notice the numbers used in reassembly
After that we went to SARA Park to check on the parking for the fire-works show on Saturday.

Lake Havasu City and London Bridge

The Steps near Lake Havasu City          Hi 61 Low 41

This morning we went into Lake Havasu City with a group to see the small replica light houses. We were able to drive to four of them. Most were replicas of light houses in Michigan

.

The light houses are from 1/3 to 1/5 the size of the originals.

Afterward, we stopped at the visitor information center by London Bridge and got some info about the area and the fireworks display coming up this week-end. We walked over to see the bottom of the bridge. The information that we got said that $2,460,000 was the winning bid for the bridge in 1968. With relocation and assembly the total cost was $5,100,000. The London Bridge has become Arizona’s second biggest attraction, after the Grand Canyon

.

After seeing London Bridge, we went back to the Steps, so Cindy could sew for a while. At 4:00, there was happy hour again. It seems like we are getting more people.

We are enjoying the warmer weather.

Moved to The Steps

The Steps, near Lake Havasu City, Arizona  Hi 57  Low 39

Not much going on yesterday, except we went to church. At 5:30 the Park had an ice cream social. Quite a few people were there.

Today we got up early and did laundry. Cindy wanted to try backing up in the big parking lot, and if she keeps doing as well as she did, I might have to look out for my driving job. She wanted to drive a little ways so she did for about 20 miles. She didn't have any problems.

We headed toward Lake Havasu, and had rain almost to Parker. By the time we got to Parker, the sun was shining and it was quite a bit warmer. We went into Wal-Mart to get Cindy’s meds, and got kind of frustrated again. It seems that the Wal-Mart in Riverton had filled some of them, and we were not able to get all of them without calling Riverton again. I had called them yesterday to have them taken off their filled prescriptions, but they didn't do it until the pharmacy in Parker called them. I have asked both stores many times not to auto-fill her prescriptions, but I guess they don’t understand what Quit Auto-fill means. But, oh well, we shall see.

We arrive at the steps at about 3:30, just in time for 4:00 happy hour. This time we are with Escapees, Boomers, and Boon Dockers. Boon Dockers and Boomers are sub-groups of Escapees. There are many BOF’s within Escapees. These are groups with like interests (Bird Of a Feather).  There were probably more than 30 people at happy hour, all just visiting with each other.

Tomorrow a group of us are going into Lake Havasu to see some of the sights.

North Ranch Hi 46 Low 28

We notice the heater ran a lot last night. When we went out the, truck was covered with snow. I thought we left Utah to get away from all the white stuff. It was cold all day! It’s supposed to be a little warmer tomorrow. I hope so

.

We went to the Gold Rush Parade in Wickenburg this morning. I had talked to a policeman yesterday and he advised us to be parked by 8:30 at the latest because they we going to close the road at 9:00. We found a place to park at a restaurant called Screamers. Cindy went in to ask permission to park, and came back to say OK. She also said they had a giant egg omelet burrito that sure looked good. So we shared one. Because the restaurant owner was kind enough to let us park in his lot, he also got a customer.

The parade started to line up at about 9:30, and started at 10:00. We found out we were about a block too far up from the start, so we walked down to see some of the parade before it actually started. We did get to see all of the parade. One advantage we had from being parked where we did, was that we got to leave sooner than most of the traffic.

Old Mail truck

The same gun slinger we saw yesterday

What's a parade without a clown? Here he is with his wiener dog.

                                                                                                     Neat old stage coach        

                                                                                      Another stage coach

        These older gals sure could move!

                                                                                Dance hall girls from the old west.

Bull inside car

Horses playing with a giant soccer ball 

We were going back to the detour, when I spotted a yard sale sign. I thought why not, as I hadn't been to a yard sale for a month. Cindy found some really nice material for a lot better price than we would have got it at home.

We got back to North Ranch at about 2:00. We had been invited over to Mike and Pat’s at 4:00, so we went over to see them and visited for a while.

It’s still very cold here. The TV said it was about 15 degrees colder than normal. I’m sure glad we’re not in Connecticut, or anywhere back east for that matter. 

  

Wickenburg, Arizona's Gold Rush Days

Still at North Ranch Escapees Park, Congress, Arizona.

Today we went into Wickenburg to see the old car show and all the booths selling things. We got there as the opening ceremonies were starting. They said this was the 65^th Gold Rush days, and Wickenburg’s 150^th anniversary

.

The singer had a beautiful voice. The MC said we got to hear her for free this morning, but you would have to pay to hear her tonight at the dance.

They also had a champion six shooter handler give us a demonstration  He said he had been playing with guns since he got his first cap gun as a child. He said he has taught actors how to handle guns for the movies.

The whole street was full of old cars and Trucks. It makes me feel old, when some of the cars in the show were some of the ones I drove and owned as a kid. Cindy thought the old tear-drop trailer pulled by the old car was kind of neat.

Old 1929 Chev mess wagon truck.

Free trolley for the visitors

Kind of neat street sign

Next we went over to the Art Festival to see what was for sale. There was lots of jewelry, paintings, and even hats and sun visors for dogs. Cindy bought a Saguaro Cactus charm for her travel charm bracelet.

Tomorrow we want to go back to see the parade, which they claim is Arizona’s fourth largest Parade.

   

Free Hot Dog---Not

We had the question asked by Ron and Thelma, “What model Montana do you have”. Well, to answer this question I have to tell a story. We were out on a Saturday, and had heard that Camping World in Draper was giving fee hot dogs. I later found out that they were going to be the most expensive “free” hot dogs I have ever had. Cindy noticed a Montana 5^th wheel with 5 slides, and asked “why don’t we look at it?” So we went to see the trailer. It has a front living room and spacious rear bed room. I fell in love with it. At the time we had a 2006, 29 foot Everest. I asked the salesman about trading the Everest in on the Montana. It was a 2011 model, 3750FL no slide toppers, and no generator. He checked and said they could trade for $47,000 difference. I should mention that Cindy was totally not in favor of it. That seemed like quite a lot of money to me, so I got on the internet and found that Pete’s RV in Vermont was a dealer and after talking to their salesman, he offer us a new 2012 trailer with generator, slide toppers, and double pane windows for $37,000 difference, but we would have to drive to their dealership in Indiana to take our trade to them. Well, after considerable deliberation, and overcoming Cindy’s objections, we pulled the Everest about 1500 miles to just inside Indiana to pick up our new 5er. Now almost two years later, she and I really like the Montana, but it was the most expensive free hot dog I have ever eaten. I might add, the sales man at Pete’s was great to work with and everything about the transaction turned out perfect. The Chev 3500 Duramax has no problem pulling it. The old trailer seemed to have a lot of jerking, and while we were in Indiana, Cindy fell and cracked a rib, and was afraid we might have to stay a while. The new trailer has a Mor-Ride hitch and suspension and pulls so much smoother, that Cindy was under no distress coming home.

Conquering a fear!

 2/7/2013

I did it, I actually did it!!!  It feels good to have conquered a fear.  I want to thank everyone for their vote of confidence. I had another driving class today.  We drove into Congress and then up the windy steep road to Yarnell.   This is the road that the ‘Long, Long Trailer’ was filmed on. Then it was on to Wickenburg, yes again, this time into old town.  Streets were a little narrow and some traffic.  I turned around three times in gas stations in the last two days, and one time in a grocery store parking lot.  I drove on a very deep roller coaster road. That was interesting. I am capable of backing the 5er up. (Give me 50 acres and I do about anything.)  I would not do it anywhere than an empty parking lot, but I will in time.   There aren't any pictures of most of the drive; I think Ray was worried about his baby (the 5er and the truck). I drove about 200 miles in the last two days. Other than the driving the day has been rather quite.  We did go back into Wickenburg to get a few errands done.