You Know You’re In Arizona When ….

You think Taco Bell is the local phone company.
You notice your car overheating before you drive it.
You no longer associate bridges or rivers with water.
You can hear the weather forecast of 115 degrees without flinching.
You can be in the snow, then drive for an hour...and it will be over 100 degrees.
You discover, in July it only takes two fingers to drive your car, because your steering wheel is so hot.
You run your air conditioner in the middle of winter so you can use your fireplace.
The best parking is determined by shade.....not distance.
You realize that "Valley Fever" isn't a disco dance.
You can make sun tea instantly.
Hotter water comes from the cold water tap than the hot one.
It's noon in July, kids are on summer vacation and yet all the streets are totally empty of both cars and people.
You actually burn your hand opening the car door.
Sunscreen is sold year round and kept right at the checkout counter.
You put on fresh sunscreen just to go check the mail box.
Some fools will market mini-misters for joggers and some other fools will actually buy them. Worse.....some fools actually try to jog.
You can pronounce Saguaro, Tempe, San Xavier, Canyon de Chelly, Mogollon Rim, and Cholla.
You can understand the reason for a town named "Why"
You can fry an egg on the hood of a car in the morning.
You know hot air balloons can't rise because the air temperature is hotter than the air inside the balloon.
No one would dream of putting vinyl inside a car.
You see two trees fighting over a dog.
You can say "Hohokam" and people don't think you're laughing funny.
You see more irrigation water on the street than there is in the Salt River
You have to go to a fake beach for some fake waves
You hear people say "but it's a dry heat!"
You buy salsa by the gallon.
You think a red light is merely a suggestion.
All of your out-of-state friends start to visit after October but clear out come the end of April.
You think someone driving wearing oven mitts is clever.
You think 60 tons of crushed red rock makes a beautiful yard.
Your house is made of stucco and has a red clay tile roof.
Vehicles with open windows have the right-of-way in the summer.
Most homes have more firearms than people.
Kids ask, "What's a mosquito?"
People who have black cars or black upholstery in their car are automatically assumed to be from out of-state or nuts.
You know better than to get into a car with leather seats if you're wearing shorts.
If you haven't worked for Motorola at some time, you must be a newcomer.
You can finish a Big Gulp in 10 minutes and go back for seconds.
You know a swamp cooler is not a happy hour drink.
You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Arizona.
You take rain dances seriously.
You've signed so many petitions to recall governors you can't remember the name of the incumbent.
When a rainy day puts you in a good mood.
When you drive two miles around a parking lot looking for a shady place - even in the dead of winter.
You feed your chickens ice cubes to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.
You "hug" a cactus only once in your lifetime.
When you have to look up "mass transit" in the dictionary.
A hundred ten in the shade is sorta hot, but you don't have to shovel it off your driveway.
You wear a bola tie.
You take a stroll on Ho Hum Way.
The beer is chilled and filled with chili.
A haboob happens.
Petrified doesn't mean scared.
Standin' on the corner sounds good.
The temperature drops below 95, you feel a bit chilly.
You've experienced condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.
You would give anything to be able to splash cold water on your face.
You can attend any function wearing shorts and a tank top.
You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

Memorial Day

Well, Memorial Day has come and gone. We are still at Havasu RV Resort and for the most part it was nice and quiet here. Not so in town though. It was wall-to-wall people and shore-to-shore boats on the lake. Sunday they closed off the launch ramps because there were too many boats on the water already. Lake Havasu is taking back their city from the crazies that show up every year. They are not allowing alcohol on their park beaches anymore, however everyone got by that by drinking on their boats. They are cracking down on the women going topless by enforcing a no nipple showing rule, however they got by that by wearing pasties over their nipples. They closed off Copper Canyon so everyone just moved up to the sandbar. I guess the police started early though with a few arrests to let everyone know they meant business this year. Mean while here at the park, all was quiet.

New furniture’s on sale

Well 4 days after I buy my patio furniture, I pick up the paper and guess what? They knocked $100 off the price. Well I marched right down and said, “Hey! What’s up?” and they handed me $100 back. Cool!

The weather sure changes around here. We have had hot days over 100 degrees which they say isn’t normal for this time of year. It is not supposed to reach 100 until next month. Two days ago however, it was a comfortable 87 and yesterday was 98 but today it’s back up to over 100. Heck we even got a little rain the other day. The wind can’t seem to decide what it wants to do. It has been blowing around 10 to 15 mph, sometimes from the southwest sometimes from the northwest. The other day we had gusts of 30 to 40 mph all day. The last couple of days the wind has been tolerable and we can even leave our awning out and umbrella open. It won’t be long before it starts to peak at around 120 degrees. That’s when we are out of here, heading for the coast.

The sunsets are incredible every night. We sit out every evening and watch as just before sunset the jets with their vapor trails head for the coast and the bats come out of the hills and head for the lake. Just after the sun drops below the mountains, the doves, quail and roadrunner head for the common area to bed down for the night. The place gets quiet and the only sounds you hear are the waterfall in the common area and an occasional air conditioner kicking on.

New Furniture

Looks like we are going to have to stay put for a month or so. The reason why is we just spent a bunch of money on patio furniture for our site here at Havasu RV Resort. Since we don’t have to pay campground fees or buy gas for the motorhome we can spend the money on other things. The temperatures are in the 100s everyday and only drops to the high 70s at night so we have been running 1 and sometimes both air conditioners all the time. I don’t know how long I will be able to hang out here before I get the itch to travel again. Hopefully long enough to recoup the cost of our purchases. Our next stay will be to do some landscaping but that won’t happen until it cools down a bit around here.

I just added some photos of our site to our photo site.

What the heck is it

While in Laughlin we stopped by the Colorado Belle Casino to take this photo of the Koi. They are used to being fed by the on lookers so when they see someone up above they swarm. Believe it or not, this is just a small group of them. This is actually a where’s Waldo photo. Can you spot the duck named Waldo? It takes a little while to spot him.

Today in Havasu it got to 106 and later this afternoon it rained. What strange weather.

Back in Havasu

We have arrived back in Lake Havasu City. It is about 103 degrees here today and is only going to get hotter. We will be finalizing the purchase of our RV Lot here at Havasu RV Resort tomorrow and then it’s all ours. We will be spending about a month here while we personalize the place with patio furniture and yard decorations. We are having a hard time deciding which furniture to buy. I am sure glad we don’t have to furnish a whole house. Whew!

While here we have a few friends from California that will be visiting us and then I think we will be heading for the coast where it is a bit cooler.

The Movie RV

It started out a bit breezy today then around noon the wind stopped and the temperature soared to 104.5. We just sat under the awning sipping on iced tea and talking about what we might do for the rest of the day. We took a walk over to the Casino to check the movie times and prices of the Movie “RV”.






On the way back I took this photo of our Motorhome in the Avi/KOA RV Park.


This afternoon we went back for the movie. What a funny movie. As Fulltimers we can relate. There were several times Susan turned around to me and said, “Reminds me of you”. If you want a laugh, go see “RV”.

Then to top it all off, tonight we were treated to a great desert sunset. I must have millions of beach sunset photos but not many desert sunsets. They can be just as pretty.

Oatman

It sure has been hot out here in Laughlin. This is the first time I can remember that we have had to run both air conditioners at the same time. We also are running one all night.


Today we visited Oatman. This is a Ghost Town located east of Bullhead City Arizona along the Original Historic Route 66. This town started in 1902 when a man riding along a trail spotted gold on the ground below him. There was more gold taken from these hills than any other place in California. There is still much more gold to be had but the price right now doesn’t warrant going for it. A good part of Oatman’s population today is the descendants from the original burrows used in the gold mines. This was one of the stops on the Route 66 Fun Run, however the road is not RV friendly so we bypassed it during the run.

Oatman Photos added to photo site

Laughlin Nevada

It’s pretty warm out here. It got to 101 today out here in Laughlin Nevada today and it’s supposed to get hotter. We are in the Avi Casino RV Park, which is now a KOA. We have become real PIA RVers lately. I hope it’s not becoming a trend, it’s not my nature. First when we had to wait for 2 hours for them to move a trailer out of our site in Moabi, we figured we would just move on to Laughlin so I asked for my money back. They would only give back one of the two nights so we stayed one and left this morning. Here in Laughlin, our site had a big hole right where I wanted to put the rear tire so I went back to the office to request a different site. I asked which side the sun sets on so we could get afternoon shade on our patio and they gave me a site where we get full afternoon sun. Another trip to the office to request another site. Fortunately these people are a lot friendlier than the folks at Moabi. It really was their mess-up anyway. So tomorrow we are changing sites again. We actually visited 3 states today. We started our trip in California, where gas was $3.99 by the way, and crossed over the Colorado river at needles into Arizona then back over the river into Nevada, where gas is $3.09. During the next week we will be bouncing between Nevada and Arizona several times.

Kingman to Topock Arizona

Yesterday we were in Kingman for the second leg of the Route 66 Fun Run. There is no Verizon coverage in Kingman so I was unable to connect to the Internet. Go Figure, Seligman has Verizon but Kingman doesn’t. Today we are in Needles California. We are right across the Colorado River from Topock. Topock is where the Route 66 Fun Run ended today. They all took the old original Route 66 over the mountains to Oatman then back down to Topock. It isn’t advisable to take a motorhome such as ours over that route so we elected to take I-40 instead. I made reservations at the Moabi Regional Park for 2 nights, which is about the closest park to Topock. We pulled into the park at about 11:00a and checked in. They said there might be someone in our site still and they have until 1:00p to leave. Sure enough the site was occupied so we grabbed a parking spot, fired up the generator and kicked the air on since it was pushing 100 outside. Come around 1:00p the site was still occupied and there was no one around so I inquired in the office. Oh, that trailer was supposed to be moved to storage. So we waited 2 hours for nothing. By the time they got the site cleared and we got setup the Fun Run happenings in Topock were over. A little upset, and the fact that we are getting VERY marginal cell phone including Internet (1 bar), we decided to head out in the morning to Laughlin Nevada instead of staying here another night as planned.

Oh good a Pool

The sign out front advertises a pool.


What it doesn’t say is what condition it’s in.

We are right next to a major east/west freight train track. They run 24 hours although a little less a night. There are only about 300 trains a day, which equates to about 1 every 5 minutes. Since there are 2 tracks sometimes there are 2 trains going by at a time. The good thing, there are no intersections nearby so they are not on their horns while going by.

This Campground is located right in between Historic Route 66 and a new stretch of road so all day today we saw classics and hotrods running up and down the roads on both sides of us. Tonight at 8:00p they are having a parade of cars so I should be getting some good photos.

What’s to do in Seligman

You wouldn’t think there is anything to do in Seligman Arizona. That’s what we thought, today however we had a real good time. We first traveled down the Historic Route 66 to see the Grand Canyon Caverns. A woodcutter discovered the caverns in 1927 when he stumbled upon a hole in the ground. Later he lowered people into the hole 150 feet down by rope for 25 cents each. Today you travel in an elevator for $12 each.

Then on the way back from the caverns we passed miles of NOTHING. At least that’s what we thought until a little creature scurried across the road in front of us. It was a prairie dog. As I looked out on the desolate prairie I could see mounds of fresh dirt. Upon some mounds you could see prairie dogs perched as lookouts.

After returning back to Seligman from the Caverns, We stopped at the Snow Cap Drive-in which I had read about on the Internet. A gentleman named Juan Delgadillo in 1953 opened the Snow Cap. Juan was a real jokester. Some of the items on the menu are, Hamburgers without Ham, Cheeseburgers with Cheese, and Dead Chicken Sandwich. He would squirt mustard at you from a mustard bottle that was actually just yellow string. Juan died at the age of 90 in 2004 but his kids are keeping up with the antics. We weren’t impressed with the food but the entertainment was worth stopping in for.

Where are you taking me

Sometimes I wonder what Susan is thinking of me. Especially when we pull into a place like this.

We are in Seligman Arizona to join up with the Route 66 Fun Run. This is a big event where hotroders from all over come for car shows, good eats, music, and a rod run to the Colorado River. The event doesn’t start until Friday but we are early because we are going to visit the Grand Canyon Caverns near here tomorrow. We are at the only RV Park in Seligman. It is a KOA and as most KOAs we have seen, it ain’t pretty. They say they do have a lot of reservations for the event so we should be getting some neighbors by tomorrow. When I mad reservations, they told me to call the day of arrival for a site number. I thought this was rather strange. I called and they gave me a site and said they will be out from noon until about 3:00p. We pulled in, setup and at 3:00p I moseyed into the office. The old guy in the office asked me to come back about an hour or two because he didn’t know how to work the computer. We had a short conversation and I told him I would be back in an hour or two. He said, “No hurry, whenever you want”.

A Piano?

Last night we went to dinner and met this couple who are new Fulltimers. How did we know? I saw the tow hitch on the front of their car and asked if they were RVers. They said they just went Fulltime in January and after telling them we have been at it for 2 years they wanted to pick our minds. We had dinner together then stopped by their place for a visit. They are both musicians and have a full size 88 key (electric) piano in their 36 foot motorhome. We spent the evening with good conversation and good entertainment also.

Flagstaff Arizona

We are presently in Flagstaff Arizona. After 3 nights in Sedona with no sewer or dump, we decide we have seen enough. I got on the Internet to see where else we can go. Turns out I found a campground in Flagstaff that was getting good reviews so I decided to check it out. We are at J&H RV Park and it is every bit as nice as the reviews. We will only spend one night here then it’s back on the road again. The drive here was only 66 miles and only took us about an hour and a half but it was one of the toughest we have done. Actually it wasn’t tough on us but tough on the motorhome. It is up hill all the way from right out of Sedona and really steep in places for miles. This is the first time I have had to manually drop this Alison 5 speed down to 2nd gear. I never did drop below 45 mph and only for a short time. But the Motorhome handles it like a champ. It never complained a bit. Stayed nice and cool and responded admirably to my shift and accelerator commands without hesitation. So today I just sat and talked with the owner while Susan did some laundry. The owner is a very witty person and is real fun to talk to.

Sedona Mc Donald’s

Sedona is real big on esthetics. They want their town to have that desert look. Right down to the colors.


This photo is of the only Mc Donald’s in the world that does NOT have golden arches. Sedona made them change their arches to “Desert turquoise”. Notice the color of the building itself is Sedona red. I got to admit, it looks good.