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| Amazing field of wildflowers near where we parked. The smell was lovely and soft, mainly from the purple flowers. |
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| During Spring Break, there were lots of boats lined up along the canal. |
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| Standing in front of the famous London Bridge. |
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| On the bridge, it's a "Thing" to leave your bike lock with your name. |
Once the Boondocker BOF group heads off in different directions, we then have to decide where to go until it warms up enough to head home. This year I want to get home a bit earlier to be available for the arrival of my daughter's fourth child. So we didn't want to go very far eastward and decided to check out Lake Havasu. I know that lots of RV friends go there to the Winter Blast in February when they test out new fireworks and people in the area can watch them. But I'm not a huge fan of fireworks, so I'll pass. We hadn't been there since we took our kids years ago on an Arizona vacation. We couldn't remember exactly when that was, but they were likely early teens.
We found a place to boondock on the north end of the lake on Arizona Trust Land and enjoyed exploring the area. It was fun to see that much was the same as it had been nearly two decades ago. I didn't remember driving across the bridge back then, but it was fun to drive over to the island and all around it. We went to the Visitor's Center and brushed up on the history of the bridge, how the town founder had bought it and brought it over from London, built supports under it out of cement, reassembled the bridge, then dug out the canal underneath. Not the usual way with bridges! Our first jaunt to the bridge was on Saturday, the last weekend of Spring Break. There was quite a lot of action, noise and young people about. Clearly Lake Havasu is a favorite place to go for Spring Break! I marveled at the amount of money represented by the many boats we saw; big, fast and loud. We walked from the bridge all the way down the south side of the canal to the park at the end and back.
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| Kayaking through the canal and under the bridge. |
We decided to go kayaking in the middle of the week when the crowds were less, which turned out to be a great plan. The day we went was quite overcast, but I was thankful since it kept us from getting sunburned. I was prepared with a long sleeve shirt, but was thankful that I didn't need it. We rented kayaks on the island, and paddled around to the canal and under the bridge and back. It's a lovely place to kayak. We could have gone the entire length of the canal before returning, but there were still enough boats with their stinky exhaust to make me turn around and head back out to the lake to enjoy some serenity. The canal is a no wake zone, so the big boats have to go very slow, but they're still loud and stinky! I much prefer the calm, quiet paddling of a kayak. I definitely want to kayak again! That's now on my "TO DO" list when I get back home.
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| One of the 27 Lighthouses around the lake, each unique. |
Around the lake there are replica lighthouses, each one unique, and we were able to paddle fairly close to two of them. There is one on each side of each opening to the canal, so we were able to see a total of four fairly close up. Quite a fun thing to see since I'm a fan of lighthouses.
The place where we rented our kayaks was on the beach of a camping resort. I wonder how much it is per night to park an RV right there by the beach? That would be a lovely place to stay (if you can get in!) and it was fun being able to enjoy it from the water side. But the price of where we stayed is hard to beat! For a 14 day permit, we paid $21.
Where to go next? We tossed around several ideas, but some expected mail played a deciding role. I figured that Parker was close enough to Lake Havasu to have my mail sent there. However, they won't tell you by phone if there is anything waiting for you or not. So we took a gamble and went on Thursday to Parker, more than an hour's drive away. No mail. But we have friends who were staying nearby, so we visited them and took a tour of the park where they are members that's right on the Colorado River. That eased the disappointment. But left us with a dilemma. This was solved by Jerry's idea to go to Quartzsite for a few nights, try one more time to get my mail, then dump and fill all tanks before heading on to Indio, CA. I was delighted to get my mail and get back to Quarzsite before Jerry was done. Then we were off to Indio. I love it when a plan comes together!
