Cactus cat

Our neighbor, on their way back to Idaho for the summer sent us this.

Out in Gold Canyon Ranch, AZ.
Yesterday morning - a friend called and informed me that a Mountain Lion had chased a Bobcat up a tall Saguaro and that it was still there !!
So - with Camera and long lens - I dashed out and this was the result. A once in a life time "Kodak Moment" .......What a beautiful creature. He was quite relaxed, at times napping - just waiting for an opportunity to come back down. That Saguaro was 45- 50' in height, I guess Mr. Mountain Lion didn't feel it was worth being "harpooned" by those long needles!

I hate it when that happens

Today my computer wasn’t feeling very well. Suddenly it just locked up on me. I couldn’t even shut it down without doing a hard shutdown, you know, hold the power button down for 5 seconds. I tried several things to remedy the problem with no help. It worked OK in Safe mode but after a normal boot it would lockup within 15 seconds. This went on for several hours. Then as sudden as it came on, it went away. I never did find the culprit but all seems fine now. Time will tell.

They should be ashamed

I am talking about the cookie company that supplies the cookies for the Girl Scout cookie sales. I just read an article in the local paper here in Havasu that states the girl scouts sold a record 41,724 boxes of cookies this year. That came to a total of $166,896.00. Now that is not what the Girl Scouts got. They only got a mear $16,689.60, 10% of all sales. In other words, the Girl Scouts only get 40 cents for every $4.00 box of cookies. The cookie company gets $3.60 for a box of cookies! I can buy a box for less at Walmart and that’s after Walmart gets their profit. They should be ashamed getting these little girls to make the big profits for them! I remember asking my brother how much my nieces Scout Troop gets per box and he said about $0.50 a box. I wrote the scout troop a check for $20 and told them to forget the cookies.

Race canceled

No not NASCAR. The Desert Storm Boat Race was canceled today and tomorrow because of high winds. The winds started up last night and rose to around 47 MPH today. Tomorrow it is supposed to calm down to around 25 MPH. Usually things get blown around pretty good here at the park during high winds. Car covers get blown away and patio furniture end up in the surrounding desert. I guess people have learned during the years because as I cruised around the resort I found nothing out of place. Anyway, even though the boat didn’t get to play they still plan to party. The airport reports full hangers from all the personal jets that came to town for the race. Yes, they not only have high powered boats and half million dollar trucks to pull them, they also have high dollar jets to fly them in and out. I think the only ones that are out of luck this weekend are the fuel stations that expected to sell lots of expensive high octane gas for the boats.

Unfortunately this is the first year for a while that I missed the Laughlin River Run. I say, “I missed” because Susan made a Laughlin trip with a few ladies the other day. Things just didn’t work out for me.

The boats are in town

I went down to main street today to check out some of the boats in town for the Desert Storm Shootout. Today they lined them up for show. Some decided to forgo the show and play. You could hear them on the water from just about anywhere in Havasu. Tomorrow is the parade through the channel and Saturday is the shootout. The weather says 47 MPH wind gusts for Saturday. This should be interesting. Here is a few photos for ya.

How about a little bling for your boat?

You need a car to go along with that boat?

Damn, ran out of room for more motors. 1,400 horsepower total.

Your gonna need one of these…

To pull one of these.

No, its not a Corvette.

So much going on

Some old warplanes are coming into town for the weekend.

For around $3,000 you can even get a chance to fly one of these. No license required. A bit much for me though. It’s still fun watching them fly over our motorhome.

Also this weekend is the Desert Storm Boat Races. So far there are 111 high performance boats signed up. It all starts Wednesday when they close off the main street in town and line then up and down the street for display. Friday morning they will parade through the channel for a look at them in the water the Saturday is the Shootout where they will run 2 miles down the lake for best speed.

Another event is the Laughlin River Run where bikers from all over come to the river for a week of fun and games. Lots of cool bikes and leather.

Bonsai

After the neighbors left there was no one to take care of their gardenias. I noticed they were dieing off so I brought them over to our place and trimmed off all the dead growth.

Now it looks like a Bonsai Gardenia. Kind of cool looking.

WORK!

Our park manager came to me the other day and asked if I wanted some work. I laughed. He said there is an owner’s lot that needs some maintenance and he didn’t have time to do it. I contacted the owners and put in a bid and got the job. The job consisted of repairing the irrigation, rebuilding some block walls, removing a couple of overgrown trees, and some general clean up. It was a 1 day job but I stretched it out to 2, didn’t want to work too hard.

Before

After

The weather is warming up. Today it almost got to 100 degrees but was shy a few tenths.

This lizard found some shade under these rocks. Fortunately we get a good breeze between the motorhome and the casita so that is where I sat under the awning and watched the NASCAR race today. Tomorrow I will probably do the same.

New generation

We found a new generation of humming birds in a tree near us the other day. There are 2 baby humming birds stuffed in this nest about the size if a golf ball.

The amazing thing is the nest is right out in the open along a busy traveled path. They don’t seem to mind all the people that stop by to take a look.

The weather is all over the place right now. We had a 100+ day a few back and last night rain. The wind has been quite strong today and for the next 2 days we are expecting a thunderstorm. Sure makes for great sunsets.

It’s thinning out

Won’t be long before we are one of the few left here at the resort in Havasu. The Snowbirds are migrating north at a rapid rate. We are planning to stay until we head to California to pick up our Grandson for the summer. Susan has not had to do much cooking this last week because of all the going away parties everyone is having. It’s starting to warm up here but it is still cold up north, especially for those folks heading for Canada. Yesterday it reached a little over 100 but the wind kept it under 100 today.

Bill Williams River Hike

I just added the photos of our hike at the Bill Williams River here in Arizona. This river was named after an early explorer in the area. It joins lake Havasu just north of the Parker Dam. The River area is a National Wildlife Refuge because of the many species of birds found there.

Snakes are out

Saw this guy on a hike today. He was stretched across the path in front of us. We tossed a couple of rocks toward him to send him on his way but he didn’t respond until we tossed some gravel at him. Boy that sure pissed him off. He spun around into a coil and looked right at us with rattle going a mile a minute, then ran off into the bushes. We could still hear him as we passed by on our way. I will post more of the hike pictures to our photo site soon.

This is what I did today

Yesterday I damn near wore myself out wiping down the motorhome. I was going to wash it after the dust camp we stayed at in Vegas but it really didn’t look that bad so I just got a bucket of water and a step ladder and wiped and dried the whole thing down. Going up and down the ladder and wiping with one hand and drying with the other gave me quite a workout.

Today I attacked the wheels. I have been wanting to shine up the aluminum for a while now and got it done today. Fortunately I have one of those Power Balls from Mothers

and borrowed my neighbors drill motor so it took me about an hour instead of 4.

All fixed

I finally got the seal replaced on my front wheel. I made the appointment and the day of the appointment I called the shop that first replaced the seal, and who agreed to pay for the replacement, to let them know I was taking it in and they should expect a call from the shop I am taking it to. This time however I got a hold of a different guy that gave me a hard time about it. I finally told him I had the appointment and am taking it in and will deal with who will pay later. I arrived at the shop and told them to call the first shop and let them know what they find and maybe expect a hassle. Turns out that when they called they got the first person I talked to and was told to fax over the bill and they will pay by credit card. Anyway I got the job done at no charge to me.

The trip back to our lot didn’t turn out too well though. I couldn’t avoid some debris in the road and ended up ripping some wires out under the motorhome and put a good dent in my tail pipe. The wires were an easy fix and I straightened out the pipe as well as I could.

After cleaning things up I happened to look over at the wheel that was worked on and spotted a stream of oil running down from the axel across the wheel and pooling on the ground. All I could do is stand there and laugh. After pulling the center cap off the wheel I noticed the oil was coming from the axel oil drain plug. A simple ¼ turn tightened it up and after cleaning up the oil there were no more leaks. Now I got a small mess under my tire that I either have to move the motorhome or jack the wheel off the ground to clean.

Better

Susan is feeling much better now. She still has a cough and is feeling a bit weak but she is at least up and around. This makes me feel much better also. I rescheduled the motorhome appointment to get the bearing seal replaced. I will also be calling Chem-Dry to get the carpet cleaned since we were going to have it done before Susan got sick.

The weather is shaping up real nice around here. It has been comfortably cool in the mornings and warm in the afternoons and the wind has not been an issue.

I added the NASCAR pictures from the Vegas race, enjoy.

Sick

We didn’t come back from the NASCAR race without a souvenir. Susan came back with the Flu. I am talking serious flu. The doctor said it is the Swine Flu…I thought that was gone. Anyway, they prescribed some high dollar drugs which I bought thinking it would make it all go away. I should know better. I am one that won’t even take an aspirin unless I am really hurting but I wanted her to feel better. Turns out that the major side effect of all 3 meds they prescribed is vomiting. I thought that was what we were trying to stop. For 3 days she could not eat, drink, or sleep because her stomach wouldn’t let her. She finally decided to stop all meds and today she feels much better.

If you get the Flu, don’t let the doctor talk you into paying mega bucks for Tamiflu. It will only make you feel worse.

Back in Havasu again

We made it back to Lake Havasu City today in spite of the high wind warnings. The weather report said the winds would be worst in the afternoon so we got an early start and made it through without problems. I filled the leaking wheel bearing and checked it a half hour into the trip. I had to top it off again so an hour later I pulled over to check it again. It was still full so I felt better about that. It hasn’t leaked since. However I called the shop that replaced it in December and they agreed to replace it again. The problem is they are 260 miles away. So they agreed to pay the bill if I take it to an authorized service center here in Havasu. Nice work! Even though it isn’t leaking right now I have an appointment Friday to get it replaced.

NASCAR was fun, as usual. Susan and I got into Las Vegas about noon Thursday and took time for a little lunch before heading into the track. We spent the days with our daughter, her husband and friends and headed out to the motorhome for the nights. Thursday was NASCAR practice Friday was qualifying and Saturday and Sunday were the races. I will post photos to our photo site soon.

The race is over

Well the race is over and Susan’s driver didn’t win. We still had a great time with our daughter and friends.

The races were exciting nun the less with some pretty spectacular mishaps right in front of us.

Tomorrow we head back to Havasu. I filled my wheel hub with fresh oil and I think we can make it back to Havasu with no problem there. The problem might be the weather. They are calling for High winds which makes driving a motorhome kind of tricky. I will just have to play it by ear and drive slower and more careful if the winds are too bad.

Las Vegas

Oh, did I mention we are in Las Vegas? We arrived Thursday for the NASCAR race weekend. The drive was good until we arrived in town then every stop we made we smelled something burning. I pulled over to investigate but didn’t notice anything. After arriving at the track and getting settled in I checked things out closer and found the culprit. I have a leaking wheel bearing seal on one of my front wheels. The fluid drips out on the hot brake rotors and hence the smell. I bought some oil and will top it off before we leave on Monday and see if we can make it back to Havasu.

Other than that we are having a great time as usual.

We are with our daughter again and it is so nice to be able to spend some time with her, her husband and Reese the dog.

Weather

I told you the weather has been unusually cool here. In the last 7 years there has only been snow on the mountains behind us three times and two of them have been this year.

This is what we woke up to this morning. You can see snow on the top of the mountains in the background.

Computer fixed

I may have fixed my computer without having to restore the whole system. It seems to be giving me the most problems when I was running my virus scanner. So I uninstalled the scanner and my system has not froze up since. Since yesterday was cold windy and just plane miserable I spent the day running down solutions for some other system errors that were showing up. I also uninstalled a few programs no longer used. Today was another miserable day with rain most of the day so I spent the day exercising my computer. It looks like my computer is clean and stable for now. I will give it a few days to make sure everything is stable then I will reinstall my virus scanner and see how that goes. In the mean time I will stick to websites I trust.

Cool windy winter

The weather here has just been miserable this winter. We have had very few good days. It is getting about time for some snowbirds to start heading back up north and they haven’t had a chance to enjoy the nice Arizona winter weather. The rain is supposed to come back in again this weekend. It seems to be worst on the weekends when most of the events are happening in town. Hopefully next weekend will be a good one because we are heading over to Las Vegas for the NASCAR race. Since this will probably the only one we will attend this year I hope it is a good one.

Lots going on here

There was a lot going on this weekend here in Havasu and more coming this weekend. Over the weekend we had our annual yard sale here in the resort. The problem is it poured rain the morning of the sale so we didn’t do too well. By noon the sale was over and so was the rain. The sun came out and the rest of the day was good. Also this weekend was the Annual Winter Blast Western Pyrotechnics Convention.

This is where pyrotechnics manufacturers from over the world come to show off their best fireworks. It was a 3 day show and was spectacular as you can imagine. The other event was the 3rd Annual Rockabilly Reunion featuring a car show and rockabilly music. Rockers from all around the country attended the weekend show. Next weekend is going to be the 2nd Annual HAVA BBQ London Bridge Style. There will be more than 80 competitors grilling for a $4,000 prize. This is a Kansas City Barbecue Society-sanctioned event so it should be YUM!

Check this out

I spotted this setup going through town the other day. You might want to click on the photo to enlarge it to get a better look but this guy is pulling a flatbed caring a boat, car, and an ATV with his sleeper cab. Obviously his toys are more important than his living accommodations. You get to see some interesting setups around here.

As I said before, I have been having computer problems. For the last couple of days I have been doing print screens of all my settings and program options in preparation for a system rebuild. I have scoured the internet to find the answers to my problems and error logs and have pretty much come to the conclusion that I will have to use my restore disk to rebuild the system. I used to do this every once in a while just to clean up things. It will probably take me a week to get everything back the way I like it again.

Today was another windy day. Today however the wind was out of the south so it was not the chilled wind that we usually get out of the north. Even so, I took the opportunity to do my taxes. If you remember the hassle I had with the IRS late last year because I haven’t filed in a couple of years, I decided to be sure and file this time. I have not owed taxes nor have they owed me in the last few years so I didn’t bother to file. They questioned why and it took more to convince them I didn’t need to than it would to just file. So this year I will file.

I thought I was in BIG trouble

Since we are heading for the Las Vegas NASCAR race the first weekend in March, and we are dry camping, I thought I would do a load test on the batteries to see how they will hold up. My method is to shut off the Charger/Converter and turn everything DC on in the motorhome and monitor the DC voltage. All was going well. After about 15 minutes the voltage had dropped to about 12 VDC and held there. Not bad I thought but then I realized I had one more load I hadn’t put on the system, the heater. The heater fan is quite a bit of a load. So I turned on the heater. After a couple of minutes, suddenly everything went dead. Including the AC power. Now I am in BIG trouble, I thought. What did I do! Loosing the DC made some sense but why the AC? I checked the batteries and they were OK. I was thinking, circuit breaker, but where? Then I remembered the Battery Control Center.

I popped the cover off and sure enough there was 2 30-amp circuit breakers. Both were tripped. After resetting them all was well, including the AC voltage. But why the AC I wondered. I got out the manuals and started looking at schematics. Oh Yeah! My motorhome has a Smart Energy Management System.

This unit monitors AC loads and will automatically switch off things like the microwave, air conditioners and other loads to attempt to keep everything within the current available to the motorhome. The loads are switched in and out by means of 12V relays. When I lost the 12 VDC the relays opened and removed the 120 VAC from all the appliances. Another learning experience.

Computer problems

I promised some pictures of the in-laws lot and 5th wheel. I have been slow at getting them because of computer problems. Anyway, here are a couple of photos

This one shows the nice yard they have with a big fountain. Unfortunately the owners didn’t disclose that the fountain leaks like a sieve. It’s an easy fix but I have been giving the realtor a hard time about it, just because.

This photo shows the position of the 5th wheel and why we needed the 5th wheel tug to get it in there. There was no way to drive it in with a truck unless you intended on not using the truck anymore. They have a nice big casita that is unfinished inside so they can finish it the way they want. They have decided to split it into 4 areas, a sitting room with TV, a nice bathroom, a utility room for washer, dryer, water softener, and water heater, and a shop. There is plenty of room for all.

Anyway back to the computer. I like to play around with settings and sometimes get myself into a fix. Usually it is no problem because if I screw everything up I simply use system restore to go back to a previous restore point. Well I did just that the other day and the system restore hung. It is very unadvised to shutdown the computer in the middle of a restore but I had no choice. Now I got some problems with missing or corrupt files. It still works but not quite right. I will get it fixed eventually.

Also, I just added photos to our photo site of the Big Boys Toy Show we went to last weekend here in Havasu.

Susan’s parents have moved in

No, Not with us, they bought a lot here in the resort. Susan has been talking to them for a couple of years now about selling their house and buying a lot here in Lake Havasu City and getting out of California. This would be a better place for them since there is so much for them to do here in the resort and there are people their age to socialize with. They finally realized she was right and made an offer on a lot here and the offer was accepted. A friend of ours was selling their top of the line Elite Suite fifth wheel for a very good price so Susan’s dad bought it and we put it on their lot for them. Escrow closed Friday and they have been here getting all setup for a new life. Already they are dreading going back to California to get all their affairs in order and the house sold.

Putting the fifth wheel on their lot was a challenge. The lot is designed for a motorhome to drive straight in and maneuver around to parallel the back wall. Since there would be no way to get a fifth wheel in that spot with a truck we had to do some planning. We were able to get a fifth wheel tug, which is similar to a small forklift with a fifth wheel hitch in place of the forks. It was a done deal with the tug.

Balloons

This weekend was the first annual Balloon Festival in Lake Havasu City. Now this is a tricky proposition since the wind seems to blow a lot here at the lake. The balloonists like to fly in 3 to 7 mph winds. Any more and it is too dangerous. Unfortunately this weekend was an unusually windy one. Fridays mass assent was canceled and with 30 mph gusts today they didn’t even think about it.

Saturday morning however was perfect. The balloons took off around 8:00a and after an hour had to call it quits because the winds increased, but at least they got to fly.

One balloon had to be rescued because it drifted over to the California side of the lake. Luckily they were able to bring it down on the California shore and were ably to be towed back to Havasu by boat. They even did a couple of splash and goes on the way back for the fun of it. I heard all in all it was a success and they are looking forward to next year.

Were back

We made it back to Havasu today. We left around 8:00 this morning California time and pulled into our lot around 12:00 Arizona time. I didn’t have the car attached this trip so I was able to do car speeds instead of the California 55 mph towing speed. Made pretty good time and still got about 8 mpg.

The weather was great and the drive was good too. We should be here until the first weekend in March but that’s what we thought 3 weeks ago. Things just happen.

Show’s over, time to go

We folded up our display and closed up the booth today and are ready to head back to Havasu tomorrow. I am sure glad we did this with 2 other couples because 4 hours a day is enough to sit there and answer questions. It also gave us time to explore the area.

This is a picture of our display. We didn’t get any pictures of us at the booth. This is one of the other couples we went with.

Some of the coaches left today. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a hassle to get out of here tomorrow.

I met a piece of Havasu history today. Back in 1963 Robert McCulloch, Bought 26 square miles of land at the shores of Lake Havasu. McCulloch had purchased 11 Lockheed Electras, and formed McCulloch International Airlines, to fly in prospective land buyers from all over the country. Well today I met one of the original pilots from McCulloch International Airlines. He flew people in from Chicago. He thought at the time that McCulloch was crazy because all Lake Havasu City was at the time was 26 square miles of sand.

The humming birds are gone

One of our neighbors at the resort called and told us that since we took off to the rally, the humming birds have gone. Before we left we had a feeder hanging on a hook at the edge of our yard and 2 on the motorhome.

We had at least 6 humming birds fighting over the 3 feeders everyday. When we left I took the 2 off the motorhome and put them away. I guess the birds are unhappy that we left and put their feeder away. We will be back Sunday so hopefully they will be happy and return.

Joshua Tree National Park

We had most of the day off today since all we had to do was setup the display booth here at the rally. The exhibits don’t open until tomorrow so we took the opportunity to do some sight seeing.

The Joshua Tree National Park is near by, well 30 miles away, so we pack up the car with supplies and headed out with another couple.

We spent the whole day and about 120 miles cruising through the park.

We went in the south entrance and came out the west entrance. What a good time.

Susan and I grew up in this part of the country and have never been inside the park. I am glad we took the opportunity to do so. I will post more photos of the park on our Photo site when I have more time.

On the move again

Well, we were only in Havasu for 2 weeks and already on the road again. We are in Indio California right now.

We are at the FMCA RV rally to work a boot for the resort. It’s not work when you are pushing something you really like and, what the heck, it’s all paid for. So this morning about 10:00 we uprooted and headed on down the road with 2 other motorhomes from the resort. We are looking forward to having a good time.

Girl’s day out

The other day the girls went out for a 4 wheeler ride into the desert, yes just the girls. The guys are always heading across the desert for a day trip but this is the first time the women have done this. I think some of the guys were a little worried.

I am not sure if they were concerned about the women or their toys.

I think some of the women were a bit concerned also.

Once they got to their destination they lined up the machines and celebrated their accomplishment with some champagne.

All went well and they all had a great time. Now I am seeing more women cruising the resort on their toys lately. They are already planning their next outing.

Car show

This morning we ran over to Laughlin with some friends to the car show at Don Laughlin’s casino. It just amazes me how much money some of these people have in these machines.

I used to have a 65 Mustang that I fully restored and was pretty proud of that but some of these people really have something to be proud of. It only takes money I guess.

The weather was pretty good today. The temps were in the 60s but it was sunny and no wind. Felt good for a change.

Craggy Wash

I went on a 3 hour hike today with a couple of others to a place here in Havasu called Craggy Wash.

This is on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land where a lot of people head for some cheap camping. There is a small fee to dry camp out there in the desert. I think I will stick to the resort. I get a kick out of some of these people that just want to get away from the busy campgrounds and camp in the wide open desert,

yet most of them are all grouped together in a bunch out there. There are a couple that are truly out by them selves though. I got to admit, the solitude and scenery is desirable.

You really don’t want to get too close to this guy.


Looks like we may be getting ready to travel again. I know we have only been back in Havasu for less than 2 weeks but things come up. The resort is going to have a both at the upcoming FMCA rally in Indio CA and they are looking for volunteers to man the booth. 3 of us volunteered but there may be a catch. I surrendered my membership in the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) because there was no real benefit for us. Well I think only FMCA members are allowed to work the booths. We are looking into that. If it happens we will be traveling to Indio on Tuesday.

New stuff

The new look
You may have noticed along with the new look of out site, there are no more ads. I never wanted to clutter up our site with ads but though, Hey if I can make a little money off this thing, why not. Turns out I did just that, made a “LITTLE” money, not enough to include them in the new look. So no more ads!

New ride
Remember the golf cart Susan decorated for the golf cart Christmas parade? Well it was offered to me for purchase.

The owners didn’t need it anymore and since I am in possession of it, they offered it to me at a fair price, so I bought it. It run good but needs a little work so I now have a project.

New computer
Susan has been wanting her own computer for quite some time now. Seems we both want to cruise the internet at the same time which is not possible with only one computer in the family. I use a MiFi card from Verizon, which is an aircard with a built in wireless router capable of handling 5 devices so we are OK there. I gave some though to buying a new computer for myself and giving her mine or buying her a new one. For what she uses it for we decided she might be happy with one of those 10” Netbooks.

So I did some research and came up with an Acer from Walmart. I missed out on the $198 Christmas special but still got a good deal.

On to a new year

We hope you all made it through the New Year transition OK. We made it to about 10:30 at the local Eagles Lodge then came back to the Resort and spent the rest of 2010 at a friends 5th wheel. We wish we had gone to the Resort New Years Party. We originally intended to go on down to the big Main Street celebration they have here in town with 6 bands and 2 separate fireworks shows, but it was REALLY COLD (in the 20s). By the time we decided against it the resort party was sold out. That is why we ended up at the Eagles Lodge. We still had a pretty good time though.