Emerald Cove - Parker, CA

Emerald Cove RV Park is right on the Colorado River, on the California side. It is six miles out of Parker, AZ, which is 30 miles north of Quartzside, AZ. We went there because it was the closest park we could get into at that time, to go to the flea market in Quartzside.

It ended up being a really fun place to be. We went to the flea market several times. It is huge! I took my camera every day and didn't even take one picture! Terry's cousin, Bob Howard, and his wife Carol live in Quartzside during the winter. We got to see them. Dutch and Gail Odekirk ended up staying in Parker while they went to the flea market. We saw them there and had them over for breakfast the morning they left.

We also got to spend time with Ron and Sharon Vickery. Ron used to be married to Terry's sister years ago before she passed away. We had never met his current wife. We had lots of fun together sharing meals and playing Yahtzee, and visiting a lot. And I didn't get pictures of any of them!Terry washed his pick-up all shiny while we were at Emerald cove. We rode our bike around a lot. We were hoping for a little warmer weather, and it did get up in the high 60's the day before we left. Most of the time it was in the high 50's and low 60's. I am not complaining. Our daughter Jill said it was -25 in Rexburg and Idaho Falls while we were here.

There are a lot of palm trees at Emerald Cove. They shaved some of them while we were there. That is something they have to do manually. The palm leaves die and leave part of the leaf on the tree until it is cut off. They are pretty shaggy until they are shaved.

The park is said to have one of the longest stretches of sandy beach along the Colorado. It was really nice to walk on. We are not a member of the park--it is just an affiliate park to the plan that we have, so we didn't get one of the spots right on the river.

They say that the Colorado is the cleanest river in the United States. I know that you can see the bottom of the river for a long ways out, until it gets too deep. Across the park from the river were beautiful homes. Some of them looked like you could only get to them with a boat.

This is one of the fancier homes across from us.

It wasn't warm enough to walk along the beach bare-foot until the day before we left, so we took advantage of it.

I was so excited when I found this little turtle on the beach! Terry really laughed at me when we found it was made out of plastic. We just left it there for someone else to enjoy!

Well, it is time to change the scenery outside of our home on wheels again (this is not really us leaving, but I thought all the palm trees at the entrance to the park would make a good picture.) We are headed to Bullhead City for a few days before heading back to Wikieup.

Happy New Year-Las Vegas

After everyone left after Christmas, it got pretty quiet at Wikieup. It was nice for a couple of days, but we (mostly I) thought it would be more fun to be around people for New Year's Eve. So, we called and were able to get into one of our parks in Las Vegas a few days early. What could be more exciting that New Year's Eve in Las Vegas!

Well, we thought there would be something exciting going on at the park New Year's Eve, but I guess everyone was down on the strip--not where we wanted to be that night. So, we brought out our sparkling cider Travis & Shannon gave us for Christmas, and celebrated by ourselves after all. We even stayed up until midnight. But, because we only stayed up until Arizona time (which is an hour earlier than Nevada time), we missed all of the fireworks they set off in this town at midnight!
The park was actually pretty quiet, but we ran into Ken & Sandy Calhoun from Emmett! We had fun doing things with them for a week. We went to the Temple, to a movie, shared several meals, played games, and even spent one afternoon seeing the sites on the strip. They had us keep their little dog while they did their laundry. The week went by really fast.

The LDS Temple is beautiful. It is build on the side of the mountain and if you know where to look, you can see it from many places in Las Vegas. In fact, if you stand on one road in the RV park where we were, the Temple was in plain site.

We ended up going back to Wikieup for a day and a night (about 150 miles from Las Vegas) during the time we were here. Our good friends who own a piece of property next to ours came down from Ogden, Utah. We needed to check our mail and wanted to make sure we got to see Dutch and Gail Odekirk (and Huggers). We hope we meet up with them again later on. Dutch was a boyhood friend of my Dad's and our family has known them forever.

There were a few things we hadn't seen on the strip the afternoon we went there with the Calhouns, so we decided to go one evening so we could see the dancing waters, the Treasure Island ship fight, and the volcano errupt. There are so many lights! We took a bus from a place close to our park and then walked the strip. I don't know how many miles we walked, but it seemed like a lot!

One of the casinos had a rain forest restaurant and gift shop. We met some really scary creatures there!

This was a very friendly elephant!

One fun place we went was the M & M store. They had any color of M & M you could want. We went to the fourth floor and watched a 3-D movie about how one of the candies lost his "M" in Las Vegas and we all got to help him find it!

Well, here we are leaving the Las Vegas RV park. After two weeks, were were ready for different scenery outside our little Condo. We are on our way to Parker and hope to make it to the famous Quartzside flea market!