It’s been awhile since we last posted about our adventures on the road as Full-Time RV travelers.
We are now (a/o January 1 – April 1, 2019) in the Palm Springs CA area. Linda had to have another Knee Replacement Surgery for her left knee. That’s the leg that she broke her ankle several years ago and has screws and plate holding her leg and ankle together.
She is now fully bionic in both legs. She had the other knee replaced by the same doctor here in March 2017.
We spent most of November and all of December in the Lake Havasu / Colorado River area around Parker, AZ for a second time. We toured the whole area again. While we were there, we decided to take a trip up to Laughlin, NV.
On the drive we went to the small former 19th century mining town of Oatman, AZ. Quaint little town up in the mountains with several restaurants/saloons and gift shops.
The town is noted for its small herd of wild burros that come into town each day to greet the tourist and get fed from your hand.
There were gun fights in the streets (simulated of course) and lots of fun. Neat little one street town reserected from a ghost town.
Another great experience while we were in Parker, was our drive out to the “Desert Bar”. It’s a multi-level restaurant and bar 5 miles on a rough gravel road out in the middle of the desert.
The site was originally a mine and has a lot of old rusted out equipment and vehicles from past mining activities. They had food and a band playing. It is only open in the winter and only on Saturday and Sunday.
There’s no electricity, everything is run off solar panels. All of the buildings and shade canopies are covered in panels. They had reasonably good food and it was quite an experience (especially the rough road drive out to the location.
One day, we took a drive up the California side of the Colorado River, called the Parker Strip because there are tons of river front parks, subdivisions, and RV parks all along the way. As we were driving, we were blocked by a local sheriffs deputy car.
He had blocked the road so a life flight helicopter could land on the road to take someone out that had been injured on the river. It would be a long way on a slow road to get the person out by vehicle.
We waited for about 30 minutes for the helicopter to arrive, land, transfer from an ambulance and then fly away. You don’t see that everyday…helicopter landing in the middle of a two lane highway in front of you. We were the first car in the lineup that went back several miles.
We also inflated our Kaboat and spent some time on the river and on Lake Havasu for several days. I did some fishing while Linda relaxed and read her book. My fishing was a bust though.
Linda is doing extremely well with her surgery. The staples were removed after 2 weeks, with a little squimishness on Linda’s part. She said a couple of them were very sensitive. I think that’s Linda speak for “it hurt like heck”.
Before Linda’s surgery, we took a day and drove into Palm Springs to the Agua Caliente Indian Canyon. We are in the desert and when we drove up into this canyon on the backside of Palm Springs desert, it turned into the most beautiful oasis of huge fan palm trees with a stream running down the middle.
We hiked about a mile and a half in and then back out. Almost the whole time in the shade of these huge palm trees with birds of all kinds everywhere.
It was up and down through this canyon and boy did we feel it the next day. Here are some photos.
One day we decided to drive down to Quartzite, AZ for the famous Vacation and RV Extravagaza Big Top. It is world famous and the area goes from a sleepy 10 to 15 thousand population to half a million people and their RVs, travel trailers and more during January every year.
Another day we drove down to Anza Borega State Park. This year the desert was ablaze with wild flowers. It was color everywhere. We spent all day enjoying the color explosion throughout the desert that is usually dead plants and cactus. But not this year.
A couple of weeks later we drove over to the other side of the mountains to Lake Elsinore, California. Again an unusual year where the gold poppies were solid across the mountains.
But what we didn’t expect (even though it was the middle of the week), there were people and cars everywhere. The following weekend, the city closed the freeway access road to the flowers because there were too many people. Above are some photos.
It was a great winter in Palm Springs, Wayne played golf a lot because the RV park we stayed in had a 9 hole golf course that was green and beautiful.
Linda and Wayne Story
