Bullhead City AZ and Laughlin NV

After two months in the Phoenix area we moved to Bullhead City, Arizona which is on the Colorado River across from Laughlin, Nevada.  The desert here (Mohave) has much less vegetation than the desert around Phoenix (Sonoran) which makes it much less appealing here.

We made it to a casino where we played video poker and slots for about two hours and broke even so that proved to be cheap entertainment.  We might go back this weekend and see if we can make a little money.

We went to Oatman, AZ to check out the old mining town with "wild" burros roaming the streets.  With all of the petting and attention the burros get from people it is hard to call them wild.  The town is very small and crowded with tourists, so much so that it was hard to move around and see well.  Overall we weren't overly impressed.  Here is a link to the town website:  http://www.welcometooatman.com/

Our first 5 days were sunny but crazy windy (constant 20-25 mph).  It was very unpleasant to be outside at all.  When the wind finally broke on Saturday we went for a hike in Grapevine Canyon. It was a fairly short walk but the boulders were neat and there were lots of petroglyphs.  It was a nice walk.  We wanted more exercise so we went back to Laughlin and walked on a trail along the river.  It was a nice, paved trail and very enjoyable.

There doesn't seem to be much else to do around here.  It's a great place to be if you are into gambling, or have a boat, otherwise it is low on activities.

2012 year in review

I figure everyone else is doing a year in review so I might as well do one too.  We had an awesome year traveling and experiencing new places.  We weathered a lot of rain and a couple of bad storms but when it really mattered, we had some great weather too.

We started 2012 in southern Alabama after we flew out of Mobile to Denver for Christmas.  We spent the rest of the winter in Florida beginning with a week at Disney World Fort Wilderness Campground. We visited the Everglades, the Keys, Tiger's spring training in Lakeland, and finally St. Augustine as we started our trip north.

Some favorite highlights as we went up the coast are:
- Outer Banks and Kitty Hawk, NC
- Lewes, DE
- Hyde Park, NY
- Mystic, CT
- Boston, MA
- Acadia National Park, ME
- Fundy Provincial Park and Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick, Canada
- White Mountains, NH
- Coolidge Homestead and Weston, VT
- Hall of Fame month (baseball, hockey, football, rock and roll)
- Niagara Falls and Erie Canal near Buffalo, NY
- Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

An extra bonus of this traveling is being able to visit friends and family that we haven't seen in a long time.

Here is an updated map with our travel route over the last 2.5 years.

December update

View along Broken Arrow Trail
It is surreal

We spent two weeks near Camp Verde which worked great to revisit Montezuma Castle and Montezuma Well after many years.  We also did some hiking near Sedona which is always amazing.  We met a young man from Denmark (the country) on one of the trails and he was just standing there looking at the view in awe.  He summed it up by calling it surreal. I'll share that view here because he was correct.

We are now back down near Fountain Hills at a RV resort that we love.  It is great to see the eagles and roadrunners, listen to the coyotes at night and take long walks in the desert and around Fountain park. We are looking forward to spending Christmas with Alex and visiting friends over the next month.  In summary, we are enjoying our time back in the Valley of the Sun.

Montezuma Castle

Montezuma Well

Back in AZ

After a year and a half the road trip has returned us to Arizona.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Denver with Angela and Jake and then hit the road Friday morning. We arrived near Camp Verde on Sunday where we will be staying for two weeks before heading further south to Fort McDowell.

Our two month stay at Barr Lake outside Denver was very nice. We most likely will return and do more stints there. I'll take this opportunity to post a few pictures taken around the park.

Snow "flurries" on Oct 25

 We got 6 inches of snow over two days Oct 25 and 26.  Here is a picture during a lull when the sun came out for a little bit.

Barr Lake - Oct 30 - snow gone
except on mountains

Within a few days it was gone so I took a pic over Barr Lake to the mountains.  The lake was still low. Water is released all summer for irrigation.  By the time we left water was coming back in and it was considerably higher than shown here.
Note: click on a picture for a bigger image then use your browser "back" button, or click outside the pictures, to return to the blog.

Where's Big Daddy? See him taking
a siesta?

Pheasant

Barr Lake State Park is a wild life sanctuary so we saw a variety of critters including raccoon, deer, pheasants, eagles, lots of different types of hawks, pelicans, cranes, etc. I was most surprised by seeing pelicans in the middle of Colorado.

Big Daddy and friends

Three other bucks on one shot

One evening there were between 20 and 30 deer in the field and I saw 5 bucks, including Big Daddy, at one time. I walked into the field and they weren't too worried about me so I got some really neat pictures including these.

Bald Eagle pair with their nest

One of many great sunsets

We're told that dozens of eagles winter at Barr Lake but there is only one nesting pair.  They were back and repairing their massive nest in early November.

Update from Colorado

We've been near Denver for a month now and all is good.  We've had a dusting of snow and a few cold days and nights to give us a taste of winter.  For the most part we've been having good weather but there is another cold snap in the forecast for later this week.  We've enjoyed seeing the birds migrating through as well as the hawks and eagles that call this area home.  I did not expect to see pelicans in Colorado but there have been a lot of them on the lake.  Huge flocks of Sandhill Cranes went through last weekend but are gone already.

We walk around the lake regularly and have done some hiking in the foothills near Evergreen and Boulder.  This past weekend we finally made it to Rocky Mountain National Park for our first hike there.  It lived up to its reputation as a very beautiful park.  Many roads are closed for the season and in one day we saw a tiny part of the park.  We will be back for many more visits so we can see and hike different areas.

View at Alderfer Park near Evergreen

Rocky Mountain National Park -
Nymph Lake - Elevation 9630

Rocky Mountain National Park
View from trail to Dream Lake

View from trail to Dream Lake

Carl and Ann at Dream Lake
Elevation about 9900

On to Colorado

We spent a couple of weeks in Michigan visiting before heading to Colorado where Ann had a host job lined up at a state park.  We stopped for a few days in our old stomping grounds, St. Charles MO.  We visited with friends and checked out the old neighborhood and old town St. Charles.  After all of the touring we've done of historic towns in the East over the last year, we were glad to see that historic Saint Charles is still in great shape and ranks right up there with the best of them.

Childhood home of Dwight Eisenhower
Abilene, KS

On our way across Kansas we stopped at the Eisenhower childhood home and Presidential museum in Abilene.  The home was another great one with 100% authentic furnishings because the home was turned over to a state trust directly from the family.  We also enjoyed the museum and learned a lot of details about his life and accomplishments that we didn't know.  

We are now outside Denver at Barr Lake State Park for a two month volunteer gig in exchange for full hookups.  The awesome part of this is being a short distance from our daughter.  After all, that is why we are here!  We will hang in here until the weather chases us south.

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Pro Football Hall of Fame
New entrance

Team bench for The Ice Bowl

Today we finished our Hall of Fame month with a visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio. We spent a couple of hours viewing exhibits but this hall of fame has much less detail, much less memorabilia, than the others we've visited this month so we went slow and stretched out the experience.  Over the next year they will be doing an expansion so we'll have to plan a trip back in a couple of years.  Here are a few photos from the visit.  Next we drive to Michigan to visit family and friends for a couple of weeks.

The first of many?

Reggie White - the man who
turned the Packers around

The next Lombardi Trophy
is ready for the Packers to
take home

Oh Barry, I wish you would have
played longer