Boats boats and Bigger boats

This weekend is the Desert Storm Poker Run and Shootout on the lake. All the BIG boats are in town from all around the country. Today was the Desert Storm Street Party. This is where a lot of the boats are lined up along Main Street for viewing. There is some amazing engineering and artistry involved in these boats. Tomorrow we will go down to watch the boat parade through the channel before they head out on a poker run.Here are a few photos I snapped today at the Street Party.

Big trucks for Big boats.


These things are so big they have to be trailered on their side to fit the road.



Some crazy graphics

Big motors for big boats.


Seating for 5, how about a ride?

This is all you get when you spend too much on your truck.

Honest, I was taking a picture of the big screen TV mounted on the side of this truck.

Cool job

Where can you find a job where you go to work in the morning, knock off for lunch at noon, jump in the company pool for a couple of hours then go back to work. That is exactly what I did today. The temperature was just under 100 today but after trimming about 100 palm trees I was ready for a dip in the pool.

Big Boats and fast skis

This weekend was the boat/car show and high speed water ski racing.  There were lots of fancy pontoon party boats and some really big and really fast boats at the show.

Also there was a water ski race where these guys and gals were skiing at close to 100 mph on the lake.

This was our first 100+ degree weather this year and no wind so the conditions on the lake were perfect for the ski competition.

NASCAR? In Havasu?

Yep, NASCAR came to Havasu this Saturday night. Actually it was the NASCAR K&N West Series but it is an official NASCAR race. They brought out their own pace car, crash truck, flagman, and officials.

They raced on our 1/4 mile track that was freshly paved for the event. They said if all goes well they would make us one of their regular stops. All went real well. The crowds had a great time, the race went off without a hitch and we really let them know they were welcome.



It looked a bit sketchy for a while there because a big cold front came through Friday night and didn’t leave until Saturday noon. There was even a light dusting of snow on the hills behind us.

As you can see the snow is gone and the hills are clear again. We went from 80 degree sunny skies to the low 50s with 30 MPH winds and rain. Fortunately it blew out Saturday noon and all was well. Today it was back in the high 70s, sunny, and a light breeze. We are looking at high 90s by next weekend. This time of year the weather can go from one extreme to the other in a mater of hours.

As you can see today was a beautiful day.

New Link

I just added a new link to MY RV LINKS in the right hand column. It’s titled Lake Havasu City. Click on it any you will see why we decided to make this our home base and why we spend so much time here.

No boat race

Yes there was a boat race this weekend, but I didn’t see it. As I said earlier, the trials Friday didn’t happen due to wind. Saturday’s race went off OK except I was working. Since the Work Campers here at the resort have gone home I have taken on extra days to help cover the gap. Today I talked to a few people that went down Saturday to see the race and they said it wasn’t worth fighting the crowds for. So I decided to just stay home and do a few things that needed to be done on the motorhome.

Grand Prix Racing

Today was supposed to be practice and testing day for the Grand Prix Racing East vs West GP Challenge Hydroplane boat race. But the 20 MPH winds didn’t cooperate. These boats travel about 140 MPH on the water and that can mean trouble. We headed on down to the lake in hopes to see some boats running but

they didn’t even get them in the water before it was all called off. This is the first time these boats will be running here on Lake Havasu. They usually run in the Northwest and Canada. Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day with winds around 5 MPH so the race should run. We will be heading back down to catch some racing.

Followers

Hey, I see that my list of followers has finally shown up, see right column. For quite a while the title Followers has been the only thing that was showing. Now there are actually photos with names. Welcome back y’all!

The wind was short lived. It only lasted a day and now it is beautiful here again. Too bad it’s time for many to head back up north. Won’t be long before it’s only Susan and I again. We are NOT going to spend the summer here again…well the whole summer. We will be heading to California the first of June to pick up our Grandson again this summer and will travel with him for a few weeks. After we drop him off back home for school we will probably come on back here. This will be in August so yeah it will still be HOT.

WIND

Man was it windy today. It got up to over 30 MPH and everyone was securing their belongings. I took a cruise around the park and secured a few items for people that have already left for the summer. Tomorrow is supposed to be a better day.

We use Verizon for our cell service including our wireless Internet. Here in Havasu Verizon does not exist. We are on Extended Network on our phone and I am able to pick up 1 bar of signal for my Aircard from the Verizon tower 6 miles away across the lake. This all sounds good but a lot of the time it doesn’t work well. Just about every call gets dropped at least once. My Aircard works most of the time, although slow, but there are times it can’t find the Internet. I called Verizon yesterday to see if there was anything that can be done. The service tech told me he could put in a service ticket but it would get rejected because I haven’t updated my roaming since December. I explained to him that I couldn’t update my roaming because I am on Extended Network and can only do that while on a Verizon Network. He offered no help there. Huh…Great customer service! Today I traveled to the end of the island here in Havasu to see if I could pickup a Verizon signal on our phone to update it. I was successful in doing this to activate my Aircard but this time I could not find a Verizon signal. Either their tower is out of whack or their signal strength is weaker than it used to be. But they won’t look into it until I update my roaming!

No NASCAR?!

As you all might know, Susan is a big Jimmie Johnson fan. So she if she can’t watch NASCAR she is not a Happy Camper. Today about a half hour before the race, she tuned the TV into the FOX network to watch the race and this is what she found.

Seems DirecTV is at it again, battling with the networks and apparently lost this one, and on NASCAR day no less. I told her not to fret, we will just head up to the Club House and watch. After confirming it was on in the Club House I got a brain storm. My next door neighbors are hooked up to cable and since their utility pedestal is only about 10 feet from my patio TV…

A cable splitter and a few feet of cable solved that problem. In a short period of time we were watching NASCAR on our patio TV.

Unfortunately there wasn’t much I could do about Clint Boyer crashing Jimmie out of the lead close to the last lap.

Another great ride

Today we put about 80 miles on the Razors. We headed out about 10:30a and arrived back about 5:00p. It was a long dirty ride but it sure beats a day at work.

We rode over to Golden Shores for lunch then headed back on a different route. The trails are getting pretty worn and “washboard” since they have been rode hard all winter. We need a good summer monsoon rain to smooth them out again.

Yes

I have lost interest in my Blog. I really do need to get back into it. It’s not that I am doing nothing or there is nothing going on around here, quite the opposite. Susan and I were invited on a boat ride a few weeks back.

It was really nice to get out on the water again even though the water was way too cold yet to get wet.

I got a knock on the door the other day from a friend that wanted me to join them on a Razor ride. I accepted and had only 30 minutes to get ready.

There was 7 Razors and we tailored them up to Oatman and rode from there.

I came across my first Gila Monster in the wild. Tomorrow we are heading out again on the razors.

The other day I got over $400 worth of tires for the Saturn for a little over $160. Since the odometer on the Saturn showed I didn’t get my 50,000 miles from the tires, they prorated them. I didn’t mention the thousands of miles I towed it behind the motorhome.

The weather is getting warm here in Havasu and soon it will be getting hot. All the flowers are blooming including my cactus.

Looking good. The down side is since I work part time here at the resort that means there are hundreds of plants that are starting to grow and already need some trimming. I see a lot of work coming.

We got a call from the California State Park wanting to know if we wanted to come out of retirement and Camp Host again for a couple of months this summer. We thought it over and decided we like to travel the summers and declined the offer. I think our Grandson wouldn’t mind either way because he likes both traveling and hanging at the beach where the host job was.

Well, hopefully I will be updating this Blog more often in the future.

What happens in Vegas

I can’t really say what I have been doing here in Las Vegas for the last few days. You know what they say, What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Well, to tell you the truth, I haven’t done any thing I can't mention. Sunday I took Susan to the Airport. Yesterday I hung out on the Strip for a while. I am a people watcher and the Vegas strip is a good place for that. Since I was by myself I didn’t feel a need to do anything or see anything interesting so I just sat for a while and watched the people go by wondering where they are from and why they are here. Here are a few photos I took.

Today was a real change in weather. The temps have been real comfortable in the 70s here and today was the same however the winds were blowing at around 30 mph with 60 mph gusts. I decided it was a good day to stay out of the wind and shampoo the carpet in the motorhome. The wind is supposed to subside a bit tomorrow to about 15 mph but instead of the 70 degree temps it will only be in the mid 50s. What a change. For the rest of the week though, the wind is going away and the temps will be back up in the high 70s. Just right for NASCAR weekend.

Wahoo! Back on the road

We finally got the motorhome back on the road again. We took off this morning about 11:00mst and arrived in Las Vegas 3 hours later. All the fixes I did from the last trip did well. The motorhome ran great even though we were bucking winds the whole way. Tomorrow I will put Susan on a plane heading for Orlando Florida and I will hang here until Friday when she gets back.

A month

Can you believe almost a month has gone by and no posts? Its just life as usual around here. Oh, Susan and I did have a birthday this month. Well we are getting ready to travel again. It’s about time! I have been itching to hit the road again. Susan got an invite to visit her cousin in Florida for a week and the nearest flight out is in Las Vegas. She thought I was just going to take her over in the car to save on fuel costs. Wrong! I suggested I put her on a plane and hangout in Vegas until she gets back. This will give me some seat time in the motorhome. Oh, Guess what? The weekend she gets back from Florida is NASCAR weekend in Vegas. How convenient. So the plan is to head for Vegas Saturday, Put her on the plan Sunday morning, pick her up on Friday and head on over to the track. We will be heading back to Havasu on Monday morning after the race weekend. I decided instead of staying at the track in a dirt field with no hookups for the week, I will stay at Sams Town RV park for the week. Cost is about the same for full hookups at Sams.

Thursday Hike

Today we hiked to a place here in Havasu called Window Rock. This was a bit difficult to get to and the 20+ mph winds didn’t help much.

As you can see though, we made it.

The view through the window to the desert valley beyond was cool. Once I got on the other side I spotted something I have never seen.

This is a photo of a honeycomb tucked in the rock. This is the first time I have ever seen a honey comb out in the open.

Been real busy lately

There is so much going on, it’s hard to keep up. The other day I went on another off road ride with the guys here in the park. Most have the Polaris Razors and those things are amazing. I can’t believe where these guys can go with these things. There were about 15 units this day and we did an all day, 80-mile ride. They asked me to go on another ride but it was a working day for me so I declined. After telling my boss I was invited he said, “Why didn’t you go, Riding is more important than working. Next time they ask, GO.” Cool boss and cool job.

Also this weekend was the second annual Havasu Balloon Festival. Fowl weather blew out the first one but this one was only interrupted one day and since they extended it a day it didn’t matter. We went 2 days and watched the mass assent and night balloon glow. Lots of venders and entertainment.

See more photos here.

This weekend we also squeezed in a short track race here at the Havasu 95 track and after that went over to the resort manager’s house for Pizza. It’s now quite NASCAR but cool to watch anyway.



Oh and amongst all that I even found time for a colonoscopy. I won’t go into details on that but all is clear.