Ridgeview, Bullhead City AZ 11/7/09 - 11/17/09

Bullhead City is just across the Colorado River from Laughlin, NV. It is only about 30 years old. Laughlin is pretty much all casinos, with a big indoor mall. They are continually building more casinos and Bullhead City continues to grow, also.

This picture is looking down the road from where we are camped. If you walk to the end of this road, at night you can see all of the lights of Laughlin. It looks like a miniature Las Vegas. There is also an airport just across the road from the park, with the park being on a hill. It is fun to see the planes come and go. If it is a big jet, it is so loud it vibrates the Condo. We go take advantage of the good deals on buffet meals at some of the casinos in Laughlin.

We have stayed in this park several times. The first time was before we retired and my Mom and our daughter Jill and niece Megan were with us. We just had a little (not self-contained) camper on the back of our pickup. The first thing they told us was that we were not allowed to take the camper off of the pickup. I am not sure what they thought when we had a hose hanging out the side of the camper into a bucket to catch our dishwater! We had a port-a-potty in a closet. Jill had to sleep in the back seat of the pickup. What great memories! This time, we got in a lot of card playing time on the table in front of the Condo. It was great weather.

Oatman, AZ, is a "ghost town" about 30 miles from Bullhead City. There are lots of little shops that are willing to take your money. Here is a stange looking "donkalope."

And even a stranger looking cactus!

I have always tried to get Terry to try on one of these "hair caps" but he never would--until Oatman. It kind of gives you an idea of what he would look like with hair, don't you think? I am not sure it would be an improvement.

One of the things Oatman is famous for are the wild burros that roam the town. The last time we were there was in the spring when they were loosing their winter hair and they looked really scraggy. They looked really good this time and were very friendly, especially if you had carrots in your hand.

Alice was even brave enough to pet them. Then we saw one practically chase a lady across the road trying to get at the ice cream in her hand.

Another thing they do in Oatman each day is have a shootout. After the bank is robbed and all of the bad guys are dead, they go around, at gunpoint, and ask for donations for the Shriners. It is pretty fun.

We ended up going to Lake Havasu one day and met Ron and Sharon Vickery. They took us to a Veteran's Day celebration at one of the parks. We met a woman who was a little girl in Viet Nam during the time Terry was serving there. She thanked him so much for his service and said that the American soldiers made her feel safe. She was eventually adopted by an American serviceman who married her mother, and they all came to the United States. She has written a book about some of her experiences. We bought one and she wrote a really nice message in it to Terry. Most of the proceeds of her book go to Veteran groups. It is called, Beyond the Rice Paddies, and is sold on Amazon.Com. (I promised to give her a plug on my BLOG!)

We had a very strange neighbor who was camped next to us for about a week. She was an eldery lady (at least 70) and she just camped in her car. I took her over some hot rolls that I backed one day and she asked if I wanted to look inside her van. It was pretty amazing. She had taken the back seats out and had a her sleeping spot down the middle. All around her she had things she needed--fridgerator, TV, places for her clothes, little cupboards for her food. She cooked in an electric pot and a microwave. She apparently used the parks facilities for some things. I know she went swimming every day and did her laundry a couple of times. She said that she had had trailers and motorhomes in the past, but it was a lot easier and less expensive to just use her van! It was the second one she had used. Everyone to their own thing!

We had a fun experience when we attended Church. On the program it listed the leadership of the Ward. The name of the Ward Mission Leader was the same name of a previous Teton County Clerk in Idaho who was in office the same years I was. I looked up and there he and his wife were, sitting a couple of rows ahead of us. I don't know who was more surprised, me or him. We had a nice visit and caught up a little bit on what we were all doing now. We continually realize what a small world we live in.

Las Vegas RV Park, Las Vegas NV 11/3/09 - 11/7/09

We left St. George and headed to Las Vegas. The park there is an older park, but very nice. But, being old, some of the spaces for RVs are quite small, and the roads are very narrow. It was made before all of these "condo-size" RVs came along. So, we "wiggled" into the spots assigned to us and had a nice time!

We only stayed four nights in Las Vegas, but decided that was probably long enough. Ron and Alice had never been in Las Vegas before, so we had to go down on the strip one afternoon and evening. It isn't our favorite place, but it is really fascinating, especially if you haven't been there before.

I think my favorite place is Cesar's Palace. It is huge and takes up more than a city block. It has some forum shops that are down some "streets in Rome," all inside the casino. The "sky" goes from night to day in one hour. All of the shops are very expensive so we just window shop.

They have two places where there are statues that "come alive" and one of them has a fantastic light show. Here we are waiting for one of them.

This show has Brutus and others who come alive and it used to have quite a light show. It was very disappointing this time, because not many of the lights even worked.

But, the statues did "somewhat" come alive. I guess it was better than nothing, because the other group of statues with Cesar didn't work at all! So at least we got to show this one to Ron and Alice.

As we left Cesar's Palace, there was a big pool about three stories down from where we were standing and we threw pennies in it for good luck!

We have crossed Hoover Dam at least once a year for over 20 years now and have never stopped long enough to go on a tour. So, we decided to do it this year.

Hoover Dam is built on the Colorado River and is the boarder between Nevada and Arizona. That is also where time changes from Mountain Standard Time to Pacific Standard Time. There are two identical clock towers on the dam. This one is on the Arizona side. . .

. . .and this one is on the Nevada side.

During the tour, we went down into one of the diversion tunnels they used to divert the river while the dam was being built. They warned you that if you were claustrophobic that maybe you shouldn't go on the tour! We took the tunnel down and got to see the huge turbines that make electricity. Then we took the elevator clear up to the top of a tower above the dam. (Terry really likes riding in elevators and going to high places--NOT!

This is on top of the tower, looking down on the dam. At one time, it was the tallest dam in the world.

This is looking down to where the water comes out of the turbine. You can see how high we were by how small the automobiles at the bottom look! The dam was mostly made to help with the flooding of the Colorado River and for irrigating purposes. The electricity it produces is just a by-product, but the electricity pretty much pays for all of the upkeep of the dam.

They are in the process of building a new road to bypass the dam. Traffic gets so congested by all of the pedestrians that it sometimes takes a long time to go through. Also, there are security risks with people going across the dam. (They do a security check on every vehicle before they go over it! I am sure it is bombs they are checking us for!) Of course, the new road has to go over the gorge of the Colorado River. Terry says he is still going the slow way and is crossing over the dam!

I zoomed in on this picture of some men working on the new road! I hope they have good life insurance! They are hanging above one of the columns on the new road.

This is a picture of a picture of the proposed new finished highway. Maybe I will go with Terry over the dam!

As they say, "what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas." I guess that is true. We are heading next to Bullhead City to our another adventure!

St. George RV Park, Huricane UT 10/20/09 - 11/3/09

We went to St. George RV Park, which is actually in Harrisburg, UT. Harrisburg is just a little community that was settled by the Mormons years ago and now only has just mostly the RV Park and then another park with permanent park model homes and a few RVs in it. Our address is Hurricane, UT and we went to Church in Leeds, UT. St. George is about 15 miles from the Park.The Park is only a few miles away from Zion National Park. We spent part of a day going through it. The rock mountains are truly amazing. We went here several years ago with our friends Ruth and John Lunt, but it was in January and a lot of the park was still snowed in. These three rocks are called the "Patriarchs."

It was fun taking Ron and Alice through with us. As usual, I took tons of pictures of the rocks. These are just a couple of them.

We stopped at the lodge and while Alice and I were in the gift shop, Terry and Ron played a friendly game of chess!

As we were going through the park, we were wondering if anyone ever tried climbing these rocks. We were sure that no one would even try because they are just straight up and down. Well, we spotted these two people climbing the rocks! I zoomed in on them for a better look. We couldn't believe they could actually do it!

Another day we went to the Johnson Dinosaur Track Farm. This Mr. Johnson was leveling out his land to farm and discovered dinosaur tracks. Eventually, he donated his land and all of his discoveries as a museum.

These tracks were made in the mud and then were filled with sand and through the years, were compressed into rocks. So, these tracks are the formed rocks on top of the tracks in the mud, and turned upside down and taken out of the mold made in the mud.

Here is Alice and Ron looking at the many exhibits that are in pretty much the same place they were found, but are now enclosed with a building. They are actually still excavating right in the building itself. It was pretty fascinating.

During our stay at St. George Park, our granddaughter, Sarah's daughter Jenna, got baptized in Tooele, UT. So Terry and I left on a Friday to go to her baptism on Saturday. We took some back roads to get there and ran into (almost literally) a bunch of sheep. You can see that we also "ran into" some snow! Sarah actually still had part of a snowman in her back yard that the kids had built a few days before. It made us appreciate going back to the 70 degree weather in St. Geroge the next day!

Here is sweet Jenna with her dad, Ryan, just before she was baptised. Ryan baptised and confirmed her a member of the Church. We are so proud of Jenna and her decision to be baptised and Ryan's worthiness to perform these important ordinances. Jenna was baptised on Halloween so the night before we got to share in their Ward Halloween party and trunk-or-treat. After the baptism we had a great meal of soups that Ryan made, with some of Ryan's family, and Shay and his kids were there. Thanks to Sarah and Ryan and their hospitality. We enjoyed being with them and the kids, even if it was just a short trip.