Saturday, Dec 14 - Thursday, Dec 19, 2013 (Lake Havasu City, AZ)





Saturday

The plan today was to attend the boat parade tonight down by London Bridge but boy it was sure windy out.  We called just to make sure that the parade was still scheduled, yes it was, but they admitted that there would be fewer boats than last week.  One of the reasons besides the wind was because they have let up to 4 feet of water out of the lake because of some work they are doing on Parker dam which is located downstream.  Apparently the channel by the London Bridge is now too shallow for some of the larger boats.

We were meeting our friends from the resort, Marie and Everett at the Barley Brothers brew pub which has a nice view of the channel.  We thought if we got there early we should get a good seat.  Well a lot of people had the same idea only they went a step further and actually made reservations, so when we got there even though the restaurant/bar area wasn't full yet, all the window tables were reserved, the only seating was at the bar.  Hmmm, guess we didn't think that through to well but all ended well.  I went up and asked the hostess if they had any tables in the restaurant even if they weren't at the window.  She informed me she was just going to start calling the reservations to make sure they were coming and if she had a cancellation she'd let us know.  It wasn't five minutes later than here she came with the good news that there was a window table available due to a cancellation.  Sweet.....

We had a great time visiting with Marie and Everett and partaking of some holiday cheer and appetizers while we were waiting for the parade to start.  Finally the first boat appeared and it was beautiful, unfortunately the pictures we took from the restaurant window didn't turn out that well, but after the parade we walked down to the docks and took some close ups which I've attached here.  The parade was pretty small, only a handful of boats braved the winds, but we still had a good time.

Shops at London Bridge

Marie and Me

On our drive home, one of the local churches was putting on a drive thru live nativity scene and since it was on our way home, we decided to stop.  We did have to wait in a bit of a line but it was worth it.  I wish we could have spent a little more time at each stop but we felt a little guilty stopping too long since we knew what it was like to sit in the line.  We didn't get pictures of each scene, but these were the ones that were on my side of the truck.  It was very cool.

Sunday

After checking out a different church today, we headed down to the swap meet.  I didn't know what to expect, though I didn't expect it to be as big as it was.  It was pretty busy, but we didn't really see anything we just had to have, so after a couple hours of wandering around, we headed back to the 5er for lunch.  We didn't do too much the rest of the day, it was just a lazy kick back day.

Monday

The morning started out with Rich heading off to work out in the fitness room and I headed to my line dancing class.  It sure is a good workout and I'm enjoying it a lot. 

The projects today were, Rich was working on fixing our keyless entry, we had received the new part in the mail, so it just needed installed.  My project was to bake up 3 dozen cookies for the cookie exchange tomorrow.  I decided to make Melt in your mouth cookies - they are a chocolate cookie with a peanut butter filling and they are pretty yummy. 

So after I had the cookies baked, I joined my friend Marie and we went on a little shopping excursion to the mall just down the street.  It was a lot of fun, and even though I hadn't intended on buying anything, I ended up with a new pair of short boots, they will be good for my line dancing.  I've been dancing in tennis shoes, and they work OK, but the boots will be easier to maneuver in, at least that was my justification, besides I had a coupon and they were on sale. 

After shopping, when Marie dropped me off at the 5er, I realized I had left without my key and I noticed that Rich was gone with Gracie on the bike.  Sure hope that door works.....yep it does, yahoo, Rich got it fixed.  It sure is handy having the keyless entry and we have both gotten very used to it and having to use and remember to take a key with you when you leave has been a pain. 

Pretty soon Rich and Gracie got back from their bike ride and we spent another relaxing evening here in the 5er.

Tuesday

We decided that since the last several Tuesday's we'd gone out to breakfast, why stop now?  We had heard about this local's cafe that serves a good and inexpensive breakfast so we decided to  check it out.  We both enjoyed our breakfast and the atmosphere was nice, you could even see the lake from the table where we were seated.  We definitely will come back again.

We spent the rest of the morning exploring some of the neighborhoods.  I think I mentioned that Rich and I both like checking out houses for sale and at the swap meet there was a realtor handing out her business cards and she gave us a list of foreclosures in the area.  We decided to check out a few just for fun.  Boy, a couple of them were in pretty rough shape, they would definitely be a project.  It was just fun to get out and check out more of the town.

After we got back to the 5er and had a quick lunch, it was time to head off to the cookie exchange.  Since we are staying in a resort, we are trying to take part in some of the activities that are offered.  There was a nice gathering of ladies, maybe around 12.  I have never been part of a cookie exchange so wasn't really sure what to expect.  So after setting out the cookies on trays, we all went around and got 3 of each variety of cookie.  There were plenty left over, so then you sit around and chat for awhile and eat cookies and drink coffee.  We were entertained by several ladies sharing stories about rattlesnakes, spiders and bats....sounds more like a Halloween gathering than a Christmas one.  =)  I had a nice time, but ate way too many cookies.  I do have to say, that I did get several nice positive comments about my cookies.  I must have improved in my cooking baking skills over the years because when I was growing up my brothers used to tease me about my cookies and call them "chokies", must have been because that one time I burned a batch.  You know how brothers can be....

That was pretty much our day, after dinner we watched another Christmas movie from our collection of movies we have with us.  We don't have cable TV here and we haven't signed up for satelite tv, so we watch lots of movies and so far we haven't missed tv.  We do get the local tv from our antenna, but don't watch alot of it because we don't like all the commercials.

Wednesday

Just like Monday, Rich heads off to work out in the fitness room and I attend my line dancing class.  After another good workout, I headed home to the 5er. 

The project today was to bake a cake for the dessert potluck tomorrow night here in the resort.  My brother's significant other has made this yummy cake on several family get togethers, so I thought I'd try that recipe.  The cake is called "Better than Sex", it is pretty yummy and you'll have to try the cake and see for yourself if it is appropriately named.....

Nothing else much news worthy happened, did some reading, some walking, just another day in sunny Arizona.

Thursday

Today we were going to go for a ride in the desert with our neighbors behind us, Gene and Iris.  They have a four seater  RZR (pronounced razor) and had offered to take us out on it.  The wind had started again this morning but the sun was shining. 

We headed out around 9:30 a.m.  Gene had put the RZR on the trailer and instead of heading out from the resort, we were going to drive down the highway a bit.  We got parked at a truck stop and got the RZR unloaded and hopped in.  This RZR is pretty nice and it even had seatbelts.  We got buckled in, I almost felt like I was getting ready for the "Big Shot" ride that we did in Las Vegas last month.  And we are off, we just drove to the edge of the parking lot and took off across the desert.  We were headed to Golden Shores and a biker restaurant/bar called Hooch's. 

We drove through washes, we drove through sand, we drove through rocks, we drove up hills and down hills, it was fun.  It was nice to see the desert from a different perspective other than whizzing by on the highway.  We didn't see any wildlife though, just lots of sand and creosote bushes with a few Palo Verde trees here and there.  Here we are on top of "Fred's Mountain"  apparently it got it name from a fellow in the rv resort who was riding on this mountain (it's really just a big hill) and tipped over his vehicle and had to be life flighted off the mountain, I'm glad to report he survived his ordeal and still lives to tell about it.  Apparently he lives in our resort and that's why folks from our resort call it "Fred's Mountain".  Here's a picture of us on top of Fred's Mountain, like I said it's really just a big hill and from the picture you can't even really tell that we are on a hill, but we are.

Me, Iris & Gene

Rich and me - did I mention it was windy out?  I got sand and grit in my ears standing here on this hill........

At one point we went under a train tressle and boy it was a tight fit, apparently with the recent rains, the dirt had piled up some since they had last been through here.  Gene got out and checked to see if we'd fit under, and he thought we would and we almost did, but at the very end, the top of the RZR rubbed and boy he ended up with a nice big old scratch on his top.  After about riding for a hour or so we arrived at our lunch destination.  Apparently we were the first ones here today because according to Gene, usually you will find a bunch of RZR's and bikes parked out front, must be the wind that's keeping people away.

We decided to eat outside, we were protected just enough from the wind so that it wasn't too cold.  Rich and I were glad we brought along our heavy jackets.  We had a nice relaxing lunch, Rich and I shared a plate of nacho's, we were glad we were advised to share because it was a BIG plate of nacho's.  While we were eating another group on RZR's pulled up and by the time we left there were about 4-5 RZR's sitting in the parking lot.  It's a popular destination for RZR folk because on our way back to the truck, we passed someone in a RZR and he asked how far it was to Hooch's.  On the way back, we had another tight squeeze, we had to go through this culvert type thing that was just wide enough for the RZR to fit, boy talk about clausterphobia, luckily it was a short distance.  We went back a different route and this route had a lot more rolling type hills that we went up and down.  It was a lot of fun.  Rich was impressed on how smooth the ride was, you would think we would be bounced to pieces, but we weren't.  The suspension on these RZR's are pretty good.  I can see why there are so many down here, they are a good way to get out in the desert and do some sightseeing.  Hopefully we'll get out again sometime in the future.

After our RZR ride the other event on our agenda was to attend the dessert potluck tonight at the resort.  They were having entertainment this year, a local bell choir was going to perform.  Wow, I'm glad we didn't eat dinner, our nacho's were both lunch/dinner, because there was tons of yummy looking desert. 

We sat at a table with a gentleman that we've met in the fitness room named Parker and his wife Margaret.  We met their friends from Nebraska names Shirley and Pat.  They all seemed like a nice group of people, everyone here is pretty friendly which makes it nice when you are the "new kids on the block".  We enjoyed our dessert and then were entertained by the bell choir for about 20 minutes or so.  I don't ever remember hearing a bell choir in person and I was impressed, they did a very nice job and seemed to have a lot of fun performing. 

After the choir was done performing, there was a gift exchange but we didn't stay for that part of the evening activities.  It looked like it would be a lot of fun and when I was at the cookie exchange the women were talking about previous years gift exchanges.  If we are here next year, we'll have to participate.  

I picked up our cake pan and there still was a lot of cake left, like I said there was tons of desserts, I am too embarressed to say how many of them I tried, and there was no way that we wanted that much cake in the 5er.  Rich suggested that we stop at Marie & Everett's & Gene & Iris' and leave them some cake.  So we knocked on each of their doors and had a quick visit and unloaded some cake on them.  We ended up coming home with a few pieces left and I can tell you I'm not going to like getting on the bathroom scale tomorrow morning.  I see a diet on the horizon.